dressing to undress

i was born a leafless tree in a field of soccer balls. communication was difficult, but the will to connect was there. and isn’t that the most important thing in the end?

but maybe i should be a little more specific, so here:

i’m a guy. i have hair. i make noise. i’ve never really known what to call what i do, or what genre to stuff it into. when someone finds out i make music and they pop the question (“what kind of music do you make? what are your influences?”) i tend to say something like, “uh…it sounds like…me. waffle.” so this is a way for me to make it easy, and the next time someone asks me what kind of music i make, i can tell them to check out my blog. not that the songs i’ve posted come close to fully representing the albums from which they hail, but it’s a start.

i do just about everything myself. that isn’t limited to writing the songs, making the noise, recording/engineering the music and figuring out what to call it and how to present it…if you have an album of mine, about the only things i didn’t do myself were the manufacturing of the plastic to create the jewel case, and the printing of whatever inserts/booklets there may be. i could print inserts myself, but the quality would probably be a little dodgy if i did. sometimes i’m fortunate enough to have a friend provide album cover art, but sometimes i end up concocting that myself as well. i design whatever booklet/insert there is and specify what the text will be, where it will be, what the font will be, and so on. i fold the inserts by hand, take the cd cases apart, and then put them back together. if i make a mistake or some tray residue gets between the plastic and the insert, i take it out and blow it away. if it refuses to disappear, i say offensive things to no one in particular and smash the cd case with a hammer. then i go on to the next one. i figure out what to put on the cd itself and print those up on my own as well. i burn the discs myself because my experiences with paying someone else for replication/design purposes have been dicey at best. i also make every sound on every cd that has my name on it, unless otherwise specified. i don’t do all of these things because i’m amazing at a lot of different things…that isn’t the case at all. i just discovered over the years that whenever i would depend on anyone else for even the simplest thing, generally they would find some way to fuck it up and it would take that much longer for me to get things release-ready. when that happens, i swear a whole lot and make strange grunting noises. jesus cries. so, by doing just about every conceivable thing myself, the margin for error is reduced significantly, and it means i can get an album out there and “release” it more or less the moment it’s finished.

this is why, when someone asks me who my band is and who plays all those different instruments on one of my albums, or what studio it was recorded at, my face turns red and the vein above my left eye starts to twitch violently.

this blog began as an attempt to keep track of all the piles of music i’m trying to make sense of at any given time, which is something i covered in my first post way back in the day. over time it’s evolved into more than just a place to talk to myself on the internet (though it’s still very much that), and hopefully it will provide the occasional kernel of interest for anyone who wants to know more about the guy behind the music, or how i got that especially resonant can opener sound on that one song back in 2005.

enough of me talking about me…here’s what some other people have said.

“no singing at the dinner table!”
- the woman who birthed me

“no singing in the classroom!”
- my kindergarten teacher (i hear she went on to marry a prosperous oil man)

“move me somewhere else! i don’t want to sit next to him!”
- some girl i went to school with who was disturbed by my pencil box drumming skills

“what the hell is this? make it stop!”
- some person who heard my music

“dog on a string spells chaos.”
- some dream i had

and i think that says it all.

one little thing i’d like to address—people sometimes ask me how many albums i’ve recorded. i don’t generally come out and give a straight answer, because if i really gave a fair estimate, it would sound like i was exaggerating. however, if you look at my last several solo cds, next to the album title on the spine there tends to be a little “code”. for example, on the newest cd it reads “TCD01028″. that code is an easy way to keep track of how many solo cds there are; CREATIVE NIGHTMARES is the 28th “official” solo cd in the tosteestostas catalogue. ain’t it fun to have an imaginary record label? i think so. however, the actual number of albums i have recorded is much larger than that. not counting the albums that were recorded on cassette tape before i had much of any equipment, if you count the papa ghostface and guys with dicks cds (which you should, because i was the frontman and main “songwriter” of those “bands”) and a few other side-projects, the actual number of albums that have been recorded on cd since 1999 is…62. see, if i say i’ve recorded more than sixty albums over the past ten years, it kind of sounds like i’m full of shit or trying to show off, doesn’t it? granted, some of those early cds suffer from rather frightening sound quality, and they’re not all worth listening to by any means. but they do exist, and they are very much albums. the years 1999-2002 were especially productive—almost disturbingly so—in no small part due to the fact that i would generally just improvise songs while recording, fill up a cd in a week, and then go on to the next thing. i don’t work that way anymore, so naturally i don’t spit out albums anywhere near as frequently as i once did. but if you also count some compilations, random odds & ends collections and a few “unofficial” things, the number then jumps from 62 to 81. that’s not counting things i recorded for friends back in the day but didn’t play on myself.

this is why, when i’m asked how many albums i’ve recorded, i usually say something along the lines of, “uh…i don’t know. too many?” who would believe me if i gave an honest and accurate response? who’ll stop the rain? i don’t think it’s gonna be john fogerty, but you never can be too sure these days.

also, it seems that there are some rumours/”myths” that have been circulating about me. it kind of boggles my mind that anyone would sit around speculating about me, but evidently it’s something that happens on occasion. so i’d like to dispel a few of these myths that have come to my attention. there are at least four that i’m aware of:

1. i’m obsessive-compulsive, which is why there are so many songs on my cds, the song titles are so long/odd, and i’m so meticulous about the crafting of my albums.

er…right. i feel for anyone who suffers from OCD, because i imagine it must be incredibly difficult and often debilitating to live with, but i am not now—nor have i ever been—afflicted with anything like that myself. maybe this goes back to the whole “crazy/reclusive genius” category some people seem to lump me into. it’s flattering, in a way, i guess. and in another way, it’s kind of insulting. but it’s also so far off the mark it’s absurd. i’m not crazy. i’m also certainly nowhere near being a genius, no matter how you slice the tube steak. i’m just a normal guy who makes music, some of which comes out sounding kind of strange because those are the ideas i have sometimes, and i have a somewhat skewed sense of humour. i don’t go to see many local shows because everyone seems to think you need to turn up to the point that things are so loud, you can’t even really hear what’s going on anymore, and i don’t enjoy that much. some of my longer song titles have come from spam emails. and in general, i just like trying to give things titles that aren’t necessarily phrases appearing in the songs themselves, because it’s an interesting challenge. i haven’t always put out albums with so many songs on them, but lately i just have so many things i need to purge myself of, it doesn’t make sense to me to put together short, concise albums when that’s not what appeals to me at the moment. and as for being meticulous…if anything, my stuff is pretty tossed-off. i’m basically the opposite of meticulous. i tend to keep first takes if they’re not too ugly (sometimes even if they are), there are mistakes all over the place that i don’t bother fixing, there’s a lot of improvisation involved, and i don’t spend much of any time trying to get the best possible sound or toil away on the mixing side of things. there isn’t much of any theory behind what i do, and i sure as hell don’t spend hours trying to get just the right drum sound like some people who actually know what they’re doing will do. i just try to get it all out as quickly as possible, without the results being too messy, because i’ve done the “labouring over an album for half a year” thing before and it’s not for me. i work best when flying by the seat of my pants. onward to the next myth!

2. i’m a failed former pop star who became embittered with the music industry, and this whole “johnny west” thing is my secret, anonymous revenge, through which i make music for myself and buck the system.

now, this has to be a joke. it’s beyond ridiculous. my name is…my name. i’ve never been affiliated with any record label in any way. i used to send countless cds off to labels in the mail, but eventually i realized it was a waste of time and resources. it’s true that i make music for myself, but it’s not because i’m trying to “stick it to the man” or anything ridiculous like that. it’s just something i do. it’s something i’ve done for as long as i could find a way to do it. there’s no statement behind giving it away for free, either. what it boils down to is that i’m not comfortable taking anyone’s money in exchange for my music, and i don’t think you should have to pay for music in general. it’s something that should be shared. i’m happy to share mine with anyone who wants to hear it. that’s pretty much it. plus, i’d feel kind of funny charging people money for cds i burned myself on my computer, printed the graphics on myself, folded the inserts and put the jewel cases together for myself…it’s not like the cds are recorded in a proper studio and professionally manufactured or anything like that. i understand that most people invest a good deal of money into making an album and they need to recoup that investment through cd sales and live shows…i respect that completely. but i’m fortunate enough to be in a position where i have everything i need, and at this point i don’t really have any costs that i need to try to cover because i’ve already spent the money on the necessary equipment.

3. i’m simply a bitter person who wants nothing to do with the local music scene, and i don’t play live because i don’t want to be a “phog superstar” or anything like that.

this one at least seems plausible, but again it’s very far off the mark. i think phog is probably the best venue we have in this city for live music, hands down (and not because of the CBC radio 3 contest). tom was the only person who gave me a chance and let me play back when no one else gave a shit, and that’s one of the first places i would want to play, if i did feel the itch to play live again. this is a guy who lets me give him my cds to distribute to people for free. he does that knowing neither one of us is going to make a dime in the process. i think that says something about the kind of person he is right there…not many people would do a thing like that, especially for a small potato like me. for the longest time i never felt like i was a part of the local music scene, and i guess i still feel somewhat disconnected from it at times, but it was never from a lack of trying. i tried so many times to collaborate with so many different people…they would say they were interested, we’d make plans to get together, and then they’d say something came up and i’d never hear from them again. or we’d get together once, have a good time…and then i’d never hear from them again. at least now i’ve started to come in contact with some people who are more reliable and genuinely interested in working together in some form, and i’ve had some positive experiences that have gone some way toward reaffirming my faith in the human parrot. it’s a beguiling creature. the live performance thing is a complicated issue…but it’s got nothing to do with being bitter. it has more to do with finding just the thought of being up there alone completely nerve-wracking. i think i would have to put a band together to get the songs across the way i wanted in a live setting and feel somewhat comfortable on a stage, and i can’t see that happening very successfully anytime soon. there are other reasons too, but it’s all rather tangled and would make this even more rambling than it already is…

4. some shady force within the music industry has been secretly funding my recordings because he’s a fan of what i do.

yeah. i wish! it would be great if someone with clout in the industry wanted to give me money simply to do what i already do, but that isn’t the case. i invested a lot of money in the “studio” over a period of about ten years, and gradually built things up to what they are now. i could write a pretty bloated book just about the experience of building a home studio over the past decade, and all i’ve learned from different equipment and countless mistakes/happy accidents…but perhaps we’ll save that for somewhere down the road.

newest rumours in order of motility:

- i do not really exist, but am in fact just a figment of eric welton’s imagination and/or his musical alter ego

- i once had a really big radio hit in the 1970s, but a cocaine problem and a controlling woman led to my fall from grace, and this is my secret incognito comeback (never mind the fact that i hadn’t even been born yet when the 70s ended)

- keith richards is my uncle

- i was once a member of radiohead, before they hit it big, but thom yorke sacked me when he caught me making sweet love to his fender rhodes

- i have mysterious time-traveling testicles

okay, so those last few i just made up, after the musical alter ego bit. but they’re not much more ridiculous than the ones i didn’t pull out of my anal cavity. this whole idea of me being schizophrenic/ocd/eccentric/insane/some sort of genius is kind of silly. to reiterate: i’m a hairy guy who makes music. that’s about all there is to it. i think anyone who’s actually met me would also tell you i’m pretty normal as people go. i put my teeth in one molar and bicuspid at a time, just like anyone else.

(if anyone comes across this randomly and would like to send me free schoeps microphones or profane messages of love, or if you’d like a cd or several, feel free to shoot me an email.)