Getting Funky with a Moog Matriarch. Plus...

Three years ago I started attending film festivals in my region. Not only was I looking for something to watch that wasn’t another superhero spinoff, I also wanted to start doing more film scoring work and thought that networking with local filmmakers would give me that opportunity. It sure did.

My local festival - NEPA Film Festival - is taking place in just a couple weeks - April 4-6 - and I have THREE films showing that I got to score! More than that, I’ll have a featured place at the opening night gala where I and a new cellist I’m working with will be performing my original music, including the theme from one of the films I scored, The Trunk:

If you’re local, come on out! Here’s the website with more information and links for tickets: https://nepafilmfestival.com/

I have always loved film, but getting to be a part of creating films has given me a whole new love for it. There’s perhaps no other art form that involves as many people and disciplines as film (possibly musical theater), and as such, the making of any film, big or small, requires an egoless cooperation that naturally creates a kind of community around itself. So this year’s festival is a marker not only of work I’ve done over the last three years but of friends I’ve made and (hopefully lifelong) partnerships I’ve created. I can’t wait!

I got my new Moog Matriarch out of the house last week! Typically, it’s the Minimoog or maybe the Sub 37 models that you’d see at a gig. The Matriarch being semi-modular is more designed for the studio. But Jesse Mower, frontman of the funk band Greenfield III (who opened my album release show last fall), doesn’t give a shit about convention! He insisted I bring it to a gig and figure it out “on the job.” And when last week’s invite coincided with his birthday, I couldn’t say no.

I have to say, the Matriarch’s use in a live setting is probably the industry’s best kept secret. This thing kicks ass live! It took me no time at all to find sounds in the moment, all of them awesome, and to get wacky when I wanted to. The gain staging in this thing is so flawless that, in some ways, it was even easier to use in a live setting than my Prophet or my Crumar Mojo.

We got the whole thing on video. Here’s one of the (9 minute!) songs we played:

A book-reading Substack I follow recently asked what we’ve been reading this first quarter of the year. I was kind of blown away at how many I’ve read so far. A few duds, but a lot of really good ones too. Here are the top 9 of the year so far (in no particular order):

• Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon - art, business

• Beartown Trilogy by Fredrik Backman (partial re-read) - literary fiction

• The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron (re-read) - art, philosophy

• Mindful Eating by Jan Chozen Bays - Buddhism

• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote - true fiction

• The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris - philosophy/religion

• Jazz by Toni Morrison - literary fiction

• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - scifi, dystopian

• The Way of Zen by Alan Watts - Buddhism

Let me know in the comments what you’ve read so far this year. And if you have any recommendations for what I read next.

• I'M DOING IT AGAIN BABY! by girl in red - alt pop

• Dazzling Light by Ensemble Altera - chamber choir

One of my favorite composers, Keith Kenniff, aka Goldmund, wrote an article about how to record great felt piano sounds. Super practical.

• Rick Beato interviewed Hans Zimmer. Need I say more?

• It’s no secret that the way streaming is set up is fundamentally flawed. It robs artists to pay shareholders (i.e. legacy labels), it incentivizes the production of crap, and it creates a shallow and deeply unsatisfying listening experience for users. When you add in how easy it is to fraud the system, how devastatingly rampant such fraud is, and how legitimate artists are getting swept up in the dragnet with no recourse (my time is coming), the picture is very bleak.
  And what’s worse than all of this (and not reported in this video), is that Spotify itself is engaging in this same fraudulent activity, only it’s not fraud because it’s their platform. But real artists are still paying the price.

The software synth, Serum, got a MASSIVE new update and it’s free if you already have Serum. I know I’ve been poo-pooing software recently, but there’s a place for it and this has always been my go-to. In fact, this update is so huge I may even ditch my other software synths, like Vital and Tal’s U-No-LX-V2. Keep it simple.

Although, if you want to know which software synth Hans Zimmer uses 90% of the time, listen to the interview above!