It's something I don't think much about when I'm working on things and when it comes to putting words to the process I feel pretty vulnerable.
Is my process "legitimate"? Will I be mocked for not doing xyz the "right" way?
I operate with broken things, junk, cheap tools and toys. That's where I thrive when it comes to my creative process, whatever you wanna call it. I gotta surround myself with bright colors odds and ends posters pictures action figures etc etc etc. Those things matter more than the guitar or drums I'm using, which are typically in various states of disrepair, detune-age, brittle jangle making things. For the last couple of years the only guitar amp I've used for recordings is a 10 watt practice amp which my dad got me around 11 years old, when I first started learning guitar (technically not the first time, but the time that took!) It is my first guitar amp, ever. It sits on my desk, I prop a cheap copy of an SM57 on an old candle holder in the shape of Frankenstein's head (the monster, not the man) and let have at it. This goes through a mixer that I bought in 2007, the only one I've ever owned, the first thing I ever put on a credit card at the age of 19. From there the mix runs out into a Tascam 4track recorder which by the miracle of God is somehow in good working condition and I pray speaking of this does not bestow a jinx or curse, because the Tascam is the diary and paper of my brain. I find tapes wherever I can, a few friends have turned over their closet stashes of blank tapes and my supply is pretty well stocked, but on occasion I will pick up tapes from thrift stores or repurpose shops that have been recorded on and have decades of dust caked on their magnetic sheen, just to see what special gremlins it could add to the airspeak I'm generating at an unsustainable pace. Broken dusty moldy warped melted forgotten tape lends itself to some real out magic for those who do not seek milky perfection and stepford gloss in their work (your guy here.)
I think that's all I have to say for now, but the process of creating music is as close to church as I could maybe get, so I do actually have plenty to say on the matter, but as with any spiritual THING, getting it out onto paper or computerverse is an act of tedious thought translation.
