mac650

See The Boss Pedal, Be The Boss Pedal: An Argument For Digital Effects In Normal Conversation

July 17, 2015 — Leave a comment

As a clear sign that I have been driven mad, I have permanently effected the affects of this particular medulla oblogata with my recording within Dante’s digital pit, I have come to the realization that digital effects are not just for music.

Furthermore, I need to make a miracle machine (which is tricky as the dog ate my engineering degree) that puts digital effects where they belong: conversations. This may require we all walk around with permanent earphones on to get the effect (big and fat), but what are words worth? They are worthless unless you can EQ them to a listenable form and then blast them through BIG reverbs.

Effects will be the new punctuation. They will say. When I create the machine. I will be hailed as yet another distraction (like iphones and Instagram and insulin) that is keeping us from becoming the species we should be, in our most perfect and docile form.

Dull. Dullllllll. Im So Bored with your plain, simply heard speeches. Do me a favor…ask me that in Flanger. Phase me, baby.

Consider how it can really emphasize the conversations you are already having?

Don’t you feel cheated when you are angry and yell at someone and it simply dissipates? Try that with a big hall reverb. Now THATS angry and impossible to ignore.

What about ordinary dull conversations with people in the grocery line? Slip in some Digital Delay…and slowly build it, so your words leave your mouth and are suddenly bouncing, bouncing everywhere, every direction, every corner and crevice of the subconcious till theres no option for anyone but to turn away and look at the Star or People Magazine.

Late night and early morning? Need to talk to people but your too wasted to form words? Compression. Everything you say will have more impact, even if that statement is ‘I’m sorry I dropped the ball on the Perkins account.’. Your manager can only admire your honesty, forthrightness and deep sonorous tones. And this is how you get a promotion.

Tryin to explain away a prior bad act? Speak clearly through a Heavy Metal distortion. Raise the gain. Speak slowly and stare directly into their eyes and watch as they get confused, a little sad and go away.

Need a lil pickup in the bedroom? Ladies love a good Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, brother. Get all Issac Hayes and shit and lay it down.

My point being that we short change ourselves in terms of appropriate dramatics. Sometimes it takes a bit o’ science.

The REAL point being this record is killing me.

(dictated but not read in Vibrato)

BOSS-Pedal-Wall

Conquered in a car seat. Not a thing that I can do.

May 6, 2015 — 1 Comment

Parked in the backyard, the unkempt landscape claimed the Delta 88 as its own thing, throwing tendrils of yellow and white flowers over the mammoth windshield, obscuring the view inside and out.

That was the summer where the wheels seemed to be coming off the cart in my group of friends: it was all serious girlfriends or pre-college prep or alcoholism…it was the summer I chose to step away from that ole’ gang o’mine.

An awful and humid summer, a lot of rain that year, endless steamy nights; I spent many of them alone in that derelict car.  I was in that period that is such the symptom of being 19: Grand questions without answers.  Was the world as small as it seemed? Were dreams worth staking your life on? (FYI, jury still out on that one…).  I pondered this much those nights, and the Delta kept me hidden and safe from harm.

I was lost.  Listening to Van Morrison’s ‘Astral Weeks’ a lot, staring out the only visible bit of window. I watched the drivers’ side mirror like gazing out of a submarine: the street light hit the steaming road, a burnt orange color.

‘And I’m conquered in a car seat…Not a thing that I can do’

Van Morrison sending me personal messages through time, through technology.  The weariness in his voice, the weight of his heavy, heavy heart, the uncomplicated, unglamorous pain he was relaying…I felt it too.  I stopped, and rewound, and listened again.

A tragic tale of an adult male in love with a 14 year old girl.  Beautifully rendered, hypnotic repeating lines, a pure and uncut dose of love and loss.  No redemption in sight and none expected. And it wasn’t the words: Its the voice. The music hangs back and lets Van relate this sorrow, with an almost embarrassing intensity. Like being part of a conversation you never, ever want to have.

And I kept rewinding it, and listening again and again. It was as close to prayer as I ever had.

VM1

The Weight Of My Soul Versus A Ham Sandwich

April 6, 2015 — Leave a comment

I had a grand weekend. A victorious weekend, even. Creatively satisfying, with the raucous debut of my rebranding resurrection. Practical victories a’ coming. A moon as big as a balance ball shows me the way. A temperature that flirts with 50 this week.

This past 72 hours I have soared with eagles and swam with dolphins (metaphorically. I don’t trust dolphins).

So why do I feel like a Halloween bag that has had it’s candy removed and replaced with rancid turkey bones?

Why do I feel like the bottom of a crusty soup tureen that ignored good advice and moved to a city to fast for soup and ending up being served to the homeless?

Why do I feel like a ham sandwich served without condiments, wrapped only in a slowly sopping roll?

You know why. As do I. Welcome to Monday.

It’s a cliché, of course. It’s the punchline to a billion 3 panel comics. It’s the least exciting beginning to anything.

Despite what happens in our two days away, Monday always waits. Its the reset button that brings everything back down to earth with the subtlety of Skylab crashing.

But why? The logic doesn’t work. Any day of the year can be viewed as simply a day. Your birthday is just a day. Your mom’s birthday too.

I wake up on Monday and feel all the paranoia, all the pessimism, all the grisly bits that life brings with it. I can’t fight it and my best defense is to keep repeating ‘It’s only a Monday…It’s only a Monday….’

Alas, no luck in logic, no hope in hope. Just ride it out and await Tuesday.

Advice for the day: Keep your head low. Expectations are reined in. Keep repeating the words.

Best case scenario: when the aliens come, they come on a Friday, enslave us on Saturday and blot out our memories on a Sunday. And Monday at that point becomes day one.

139179

When Klekolo Was The Center Of The Universe

March 26, 2015 — 3 Comments

With the date approaching (one week….April 3rd for The Expanding Uterus Opening, MAC 650 Gallery, Middletown Connecticut) of the next stage in my solo ‘career’, I find I have had my memory dragged up and down Main Street these weeks, to review (whether review is required or not) and consider the town, the city that has played so central to an unusual amount of my past couple of decades. 

 
I gigged in near every venue, open mikes at the ones I haven’t. Played live on WESU on a few occasions.
 
I have worked all over the city, including a longer stint Labor Pimping. To be a Labor Pimp is to send dangerous addicts into dangerous work for little money. It’s morally reprehensible, as am I, but no benefits. I was on a first name basis with every convict and addict on Green Street (RIP) till I split and had to stay out of Middletown for a few years. 
 
I’ve spent a lot of time pondering existence by the boat launch, watching the Arrigoni Bridge rust and be re built. Or at least re paved.
 
I saw bodies loaded into the State Morgue, knew a few who tossed themselves off the aforementioned Arrigoni. 
 
I’ve seen wild fires, and walked the streets drunk at every hour of the day. I have took part in things that would bring a blush to the internet if I spoke them here. 
 
I never heard of Middletown before my company worked here. It sounded exotic, oddly. I think cause coming from Fairfield County, I wasn’t sure of anything north of New Haven was still considered Connecticut. I was pretty dumb for someone pretty past kid age.
 
I worked in the Cake Building. 7th floor. I was surrounded by co workers who knew equally jack about that town. We heard tales of murder and parades and maniacs. Our view showed us the sun on the river ever morning, like an ever moving impressionist mural.
 
I fell in love in Middletown, in that same building, on that same floor. A love forged walking the Wesleyan Campus. 
 
Being the more social, high energy, low fear of strangers creature she was, she was the first to now only note the new addition to Court Street, Klekolo World Coffee. And the first to boldly walk in and extend a hand to the owner, one Hollie Rose. Hollie had her own energy and drive and was funny and charming and clearly powerful in ways that weren’t easily defined. 
 
Paired with her equal and opposite BFF, Yvette, they made a powerful, heady combo. Yvette was equally powerful in these unknowable ways, but was quieter, let her silence speak the volumes that both Hollie and myself traded in. She had a sweet openness equal to a thinly veiled menace which either was palpable or utterly imagined by me. Either way, I dug them both quite a bit.
 
I was new in town. I had made no connections since alienating everyone from home. And I found myself dropping by Klekolo more and more. Hollie and I had…and have….a strange telepathy, vaguely manic, sorta self depreciating and egotistical. We grew tight.
 
And Klekolo just grew. I was there at the right time. They started hosting music and I played solo for the first time, in Middletown. The reputation of a free thinking, real speed grassroots business was a cache in Middletown, a college town with one (or 8) Dunkin’ Donuts’ (sue me, fuckers). They hosted art and summer fests and I was there, trying out my bedroom based songs in the actual sun.
 
I caught one of the best local bands I ever saw there, in that small store with SRO, people lined up outside the window to catch a glimpse. It filled me with the joy of Rock and Roll and a uncontrollable envy and resentment. But no ability to not acknowledge what I witnessed. That band was called Bug, then the Silver Bugs and then The Butterflies Of Love which got huge in Sweden, I hear.
 
Meanwhile Hollie and I started an all encompassing, ever continuing conversation about the state of our souls. And when I see her next, that conversation continues. We also exchanged music, which became a massive influence on what i would do and have done since. 
 
She introduced me to Pavement and Soul Coughing. I introduced her to Morphine. I clearly won.
 
It was a time I recall with a certain glimmer, like a cinematic reveal of a golden moment. It is a me that looks younger in the few existing photos than I did in photos of younger ages. 
 
I remember hearing ‘Range Life’ for my first time. 
 
I remember my first Pony Express.
 
That place on Court Street became the center of my Universe. I was ready for it. It was ready for me.
 
And I pull back….a long crane single shot that starts at Klekolo and pulls back to the Solar System entire. Cause that’s how it actually was.
941978_10151893680918765_15211993_n

When Klekolo Was The Center Of The Universe

March 26, 2015 — Leave a comment

With the date approaching (one week….April 3rd for The Expanding Uterus Opening, MAC 650 Gallery, Middletown Connecticut) of the next stage in my solo ‘career’, I find I have had my memory dragged up and down Main Street these weeks, to review (whether review is required or not) and consider the town, the city that has played so central to an unusual amount of my past couple of decades. 

 
I gigged in near every venue, open mikes at the ones I haven’t. Played live on WESU on a few occasions.
 
I have worked all over the city, including a longer stint Labor Pimping. To be a Labor Pimp is to send dangerous addicts into dangerous work for little money. It’s morally reprehensible, as am I, but no benefits. I was on a first name basis with every convict and addict on Green Street (RIP) till I split and had to stay out of Middletown for a few years. 
 
I’ve spent a lot of time pondering existence by the boat launch, watching the Arrigoni Bridge rust and be re built. Or at least re paved.
 
I saw bodies loaded into the State Morgue, knew a few who tossed themselves off the aforementioned Arrigoni. 
 
I’ve seen wild fires, and walked the streets drunk at every hour of the day. I have took part in things that would bring a blush to the internet if I spoke them here. 
 
I never heard of Middletown before my company worked here. It sounded exotic, oddly. I think cause coming from Fairfield County, I wasn’t sure of anything north of New Haven was still considered Connecticut. I was pretty dumb for someone pretty past kid age.
 
I worked in the Cake Building. 7th floor. I was surrounded by co workers who knew equally jack about that town. We heard tales of murder and parades and maniacs. Our view showed us the sun on the river ever morning, like an ever moving impressionist mural.
 
I fell in love in Middletown, in that same building, on that same floor. A love forged walking the Wesleyan Campus. 
 
Being the more social, high energy, low fear of strangers creature she was, she was the first to now only note the new addition to Court Street, Klekolo World Coffee. And the first to boldly walk in and extend a hand to the owner, one Hollie Rose. Hollie had her own energy and drive and was funny and charming and clearly powerful in ways that weren’t easily defined. 
 
Paired with her equal and opposite BFF, Yvette, they made a powerful, heady combo. Yvette was equally powerful in these unknowable ways, but was quieter, let her silence speak the volumes that both Hollie and myself traded in. She had a sweet openness equal to a thinly veiled menace which either was palpable or utterly imagined by me. Either way, I dug them both quite a bit.
 
I was new in town. I had made no connections since alienating everyone from home. And I found myself dropping by Klekolo more and more. Hollie and I had…and have….a strange telepathy, vaguely manic, sorta self depreciating and egotistical. We grew tight.
 
And Klekolo just grew. I was there at the right time. They started hosting music and I played solo for the first time, in Middletown. The reputation of a free thinking, real speed grassroots business was a cache in Middletown, a college town with one (or 8) Dunkin’ Donuts’ (sue me, fuckers). They hosted art and summer fests and I was there, trying out my bedroom based songs in the actual sun.
 
I caught one of the best local bands I ever saw there, in that small store with SRO, people lined up outside the window to catch a glimpse. It filled me with the joy of Rock and Roll and a uncontrollable envy and resentment. But no ability to not acknowledge what I witnessed. That band was called Bug, then the Silver Bugs and then The Butterflies Of Love which got huge in Sweden, I hear.
 
Meanwhile Hollie and I started an all encompassing, ever continuing conversation about the state of our souls. And when I see her next, that conversation continues. We also exchanged music, which became a massive influence on what i would do and have done since. 
 
She introduced me to Pavement and Soul Coughing. I introduced her to Morphine. I clearly won.
 
It was a time I recall with a certain glimmer, like a cinematic reveal of a golden moment. It is a me that looks younger in the few existing photos than I did in photos of younger ages. 
 
I remember hearing ‘Range Life’ for my first time. 
 
I remember my first Pony Express.
 
That place on Court Street became the center of my Universe. I was ready for it. It was ready for me.
 
And I pull back….a long crane single shot that starts at Klekolo and pulls back to the Solar System entire. Cause that’s how it actually was.
941978_10151893680918765_15211993_n

Sunny, Sunny JpK and The March To Mac 650, Middletown

March 20, 2015 — Leave a comment

Its is the First Day Of Spring (expect snow…..) and we find our selves 2 weeks away from the first public performance of the Jason P Krug and Julie Kay performance at Wandering Uterus Opening Night Gala (lalalala) at Mac650 Gallery, 650 Main Street in good ole’ Middletown, CT.

(b)

Though this news is playing quiet on the National News cycle, it is the Hindenburg of my Heart. Or something less terrifying.

(b)

Hmmm…Im a rather dark MoFo. I’ll circle back to that.

(b)

Having spent Sunday locked away in an underground bunker with Cello J, I think it’s safe to say we’re bigger than the Beatles. Oh, and Jesus.

(b)

Cocky as that sounds, its absolutely true. I have incontestable proof in my pocket. Reach in and grab it.

(b)

What were doing…is unique…and yet a sound I have heard in the hinterlands of my consciousness. Deep, sensual, setting its own pace to one tapping (or stomping). Lyric driven, plain spoken.

(b)

Im proud of what were doing. And if you live in the continental United Sates, you have little reason not to get to Middletown CT April 3rd.

(b)

But this brings me back to my original point: Re-branding. (Note: skeptics will believe I had no point at all and just stumbled upon it in my meandering prose. To that I reply a succinct ‘w.e.’)

(b)

Coming from The Grimm Generation experience (which I’m not prepared to discuss yet without aid of doctors and anatomically correct puppets…) how does one go from a charming rogue standing next to a redhead to being the redhead?

(b)

Well, you start a blog for one….

(b)

(b)

You come correct, with honesty. You dance like nobody is watching…you fine tune your craft to fit what you are now, what you’ve learned to get here and what you don’t need anymore. You re imagine the franchise, you get all alternate Universe on that bastard and you come with a story to tell.

(b)

Check!

(b)

In this self exploration, Its been mentioned that I rarely expound about my more actually human characteristics. Or the less detestable ones.

(b)

(such as egotistical, self involved, and lack empathy)

(b)

I considered this.

(b)

So some fact about your author he would never reveal if not for the purposes of warming the cockles of yer heart.

(b)

1) I like dogs. As an appetizer.
2) I regularly help the elderly. For money. It’s called ‘my job’.
3) I believe in Love. Truly. I believe it is the highest calling.
4) I also believe in divorce.
5) I am exceedingly polite.
6) I am cutely self conscious. Unless I’m right about something, then I am terror defined.
7) I like you. Do you like me?
1044784_10151653248317319_1836000057_n