Aspects of Autumn

Every year as a kid I spent my summers in Carmel or Pacific Grove, near Monterey, in northern California (that Monterey that contained the craggy shores, Steinbeck’s Fisherman’s Wharf, the newly-constructed aquarium. Coney Island West, almost - save the rollercoasters and Bruce Springsteen references). For just about a month each year, I lived with my father. His bohemian - let’s say - lifestyle, a very stark contrast to the suburban existence I had back home in Los Angeles county. As the parameters of divorce dictate, I returned south as summer concluded each year for school and the resumption of ‘real’ childhood with my live-in family. Total culture shock. Couldn’t even talk of my summer experiences with my siblings or friends. They simply didn’t have the frame of reference, it seemed.

My mother, forced into a somewhat utilitarian lifestyle by her particular circumstances, did everything right considering her young age and the modest resources available. Though I did not hold my bland everyday life against her, there was no denying that for that one month each summer things were far more glamorous and idealistic. My every creative thought and creature comfort was indulged by my father who was eager to calm his paternal guilt by making sure I was over-stimulated. The unintended result of my summers with my father was that I sat for hours tending the family business - a record store - listening to things indiscriminately, building a musical vocabulary I would (and continue to) draw upon for years. Ignorant of the politics involved, I smiled through it all wondering how I would deal with re-entry into my real world back home.

So now, as an adult, it’s as if I’ve been programmed to see autumn as an ending and I shut down as it begins the same way I did when I was young. The way the weather changes is just the insult added to the injury.

No surprise, then, that my adult home is here in northern California, a short drive away from the Monterey of my youth. The weather, persistent demon that it is, has turned misty and inhospitable - as could be predicted.

When I left Los Angeles and started my life in northern California as a 15-year-old, I took up music instantly. Perhaps some do it for recreation, some for creative outlet - my fascination with music came as a coping mechanism and, arguably, continues under that reasoning to this day. So, this muted-blue November we work on an album that is decidedly NOT autumnal, but rather SCREAMS against the boring angst this season typifies and it feels great. Working on it feeds the contrarian in me refusing to accept the change in season. The fact that its release will most likely take place at the end of the winter seems more than appropriate. It feels like it will be a new beginning.

RYAN