It’s funny to think back to when I’d use the prospect of moving as an excuse to not begin a project…. funnier still to think that at such times in my life I professed impermanence, multiplicity, and nomadic thought and existence as means for keeping a fire lit. There were a lot of opportunities missed in fear, that picturesque sense of self, settled and dead yet carrying a burning coal deep inside consistently clashing with the immediate need to ‘explode’. It’s easy to look back with a sort of disdain for what my youthful, privileged head was constructing as ‘guard rails’, which were somehow more acceptable than the societal guard rails which had been provided to me at birth. Anyway, with all of these perceived ‘missed opportunities’, there certainly must have been at least equal number of opportunities hit with all the skill of a sniper …. perhaps fallen out of memory due to being outside of those imposed guard rails. I know for a fact that there were.
As much as my obsession with the perfect work space collided with my own self sabotage in actually doing work in them, the shorter recordings, the smaller projects, maybe the ones I didn’t spend so much time on because I intended to re do them one day when the space and equipment was more appropriate to the task turned out to be that ‘actual’ work. Not a draft as was intended but a finished, imperfect piece with qualities I never intended. The last half a year has been focusing largely on this. My Bandcamp releasing older, less focused on music, my blog, trying to get some of the many smaller projects I’ve worked on out into the light. Trying to shed that old ego, that old tyrant, that old little victim man that ruled my life for too long. With that, a look back at the places I’ve been able to ‘make’ in.
The Olive Tower. Seattle, WA.
I left Connecticut for Seattle in 1998. Just sort of split, honestly, wanting to move to Vancouver but not so sure on the work availability. Most of my life, I’ve tried to figure out why I didn’t just move to fucking Vancouver anyway. Really though, Seattle was a pretty rad place when I was there. Sun City Girls were there. Wall of Sound Records. Scarecrow Video. The Sit and Spin. The Vaudeville. I saw a ton of great shows, met a ton of rad people, and recorded my first solo endeavor in the place documented in the photo above.
Olive Tower, my second apartment in Seattle was/is located at the corner of Boren and Olive and bordered at the back by I-5. I landed a studio on the 10th floor in 99 after a 3 month stint at a hostel, and another 5 months at the Franklin Apartments in Belltown. It was a welcomed change being rent controlled (425/mo !!!?) and (to this day) probably the cleanest place I’ve ever rented. Essentially, enough room for a small amplifier, a 8 channel mixer, a guitar, an electric organ, an array of Casio SK-1 keyboards, a minidisk recorder, and many many used cassette decks. While not quiet due to the Interstate, the elevator and the fact that it was on the Boeing test and SeaTac flight paths, all of those feature prominently in the music I recorded in that period. The end of RenoAir’s “wake up angels” ends with a recording of the fire alarm while descending the staircase during one of its monthly test runs. A prepared guitar piece was recorded with grooved weights placed on the strings, vibrating to the mechanical clanking of the elevator. Two of my recordings taken during the W.T.O. protests of 1999 were taken out the window. One super-8 with sound of miniature ‘bubbler’ Christmas light tubes hung in the window by string, heating with the sun and popping to life with the passing of the sun. Many hours listening to the effects of the same solar heat on my Synthesizer playing a consistent drone.
2260 Rue Florian (AKA The Cabaret of Progress).
It wasn’t really until 2007 that I had dedicated space to create. Having purchased a house in MTL with a doozey of a basement (finished a-la Mexican Cantina for little folk … quite moist, too, actually), it was promptly dubbed “The Cabaret of Progress”. Initially, two 100 sq. ft. rooms were cordoned off for music studios while the remaining 800 (or so) sq. ft. were used as a performance space, speakeasy, and live room.
The space proved to be pretty cramped for live performances and, well, quite dangerous for the types of shows/parties that were being thrown. By this point, I was moving more in the direction of studio work with my music and becoming more interested in building as a a means of making a living. The “floor” and bar areas were converted into a cutting/assembly room and the live room became a finishing area.
The very low ceilings and awkward points of entry and egress were pretty rough … getting a full tilt 10″ cabinet saw in there (and certainly OUT of there) was a real head scratcher. However, I owe the completion of many awesome projects to that space. Notable are the restoration of my Grandfather’s 1956 Shop Smith MK5, The bar, bar back, and furniture for a friend’s speakeasy pinball bar, The Cigarette Pack collection, a ton of studio stuff like the demo/score work for my Identity Protest Unit II piece and several others, many awesome practices with a lot of Montreal musicians, a couple of live performances (un documented, unfortunately. I always had this issue, forgetting to hit record even when playing in a studio) … Let’s not forget the BOOZE WE CONSUMED!
The Spusta Rd. Cabin
In 2012, I left Montreal to be closer to my family. We had some land up on the hill near Soap Stone MT. in Stafford, CT and I happened upon this cabin which appeared to have been abandoned a while. Looking for a house, I dropped a letter in the mailbox inquiring about the state of the property. Long and short of it, I wound up renting it for 425 a month.. it was around 650 sq. ft. total living space with an equal sized basement. The cabin itself needed a lot of work and was about as full of shit as the basement was. So, after a deep clean and painting of the living area, I turned to the basement cleanup and shop build.
I started with building modular work surfaces of industrial shipping palettes recused from my day job with the hopes of being able to take them with me when I had to leave that space. They were far too heavy when the time came, but were incredibly stable. Thankfully, at this point I was using the Shopsmith as a table saw so a more massive outfeed/assembly table wasn’t needed. The majority of the work I did here beyond the building of these tables was refinishing and repair work which the lack of a giant cabinet saw allowed me space for.
Aside from the temperature and bad drainage, it was a really nice shop. With a little trenching, heat, and an access way directly from the upstairs, I could have flexed into that place for some time. Still, while there, I did my 1948 Gretsch Drum kit (mostly), Several set’s of nice, custom shelves. Countless table and chair refinishes and repairs. Even some upholstery work and my first true efforts at metal fabrication.
Musically, this was the beginning of a very quiet time for me. Most of the little I did took place in the living room and consisted of writing, practicing for various gigs, and free exploration when the mood struck. Mostly however, I was really focused on organic gardening and health and hanging out with my animals in the woods in my down time.
Doyle RD. The first real ‘Custom Job’ Shop/Studio.
When my Wife and I married in 2016, we had been living in East Hartford at her house where there simply was no space for me to work. We had plans to build on the land next to my land in Stafford, even moved to a small apartment just off RTE 190 in Stafford which was similarly tight on space among other things. Anyway, ‘best laid plans’ being what they are, that project never got off the ground. We wound up selling her place and eventually finding a rather large cape style house with a detached garage at a foreclosure price point within our means.
Truth be told, the place felt opulent. Too opulent as it turned out to be filled with endless half-baked, semi completed projects. Over 2500 sq. ft.. Built in the late 70’s with an addition of a gorgeous sunroom sometime during the ‘bad concrete’ debacle that has since fucked a lot of people up and down the east coast. A precariously dug ( or more appropriately ‘banked’) kidney shaped swimming pool. Untold thousands of dollars in landscaping that had been neglected for a decade. There was work everywhere, a lot of which, we managed to take on.
On top of that was a gigantic basement with double doors, used by the previous owner as his “wine cellar” …. rows and rows of hastily tacked together shelves which, according to the inventory lists left behind, were filled with absolute swill. Seriously, I’ve never been snobby about what I drank but … yeah. This was certainly a quantity heavy collection…. once cleared out though, it gave me a good 1000 sq. ft. to play with and a 200 amp service box with a good 8 slots open.
The worktable and cross cut area were likely used the most. I did over build the outfeed table on the table saw … I mean, there wasn’t an awkward moment in ripping a 10′ piece of anything down and the table area was great for bigger projects but, once again on the weight. The components of that table are still in storage.
The chap who sold me the Powermatic 66 and 99 also threw in a rather sizable blower which I put atop a cyclone separator and second staged out to a filter and secondary bag. Something I’ve never had in a shop and none too soon as I would be using the back 1/6 of the room near the doors for a spray booth and the front 1/6 for a small studio.
This time was pretty quiet for me musically as well, though the drum set was getting bigger and bigger … among the projects that kept me away from focusing on music, The CaperCycle Mini Bike, The Rivendell Bike Build, the build of a wine bar in Maine, The completion of the Country Squire Tractor restoration, The planning of my first two scratch built electric guitars, continuing work on my Dodge Monaco, The Studebaker Jr. wagon build, A few custom lamps, several sets of floating shelves, the eventual complete renovation of the other floors of the house …. the maintenance of that friggin yard and pool! I did manage to squeeze out a few country tunes which was funny. I also continued my streak of writing and memorizing without recording, a lot of which is in the piece I’m working on now.
I guess I got a lot more done there than I tend to give it credit for. And for real … the fucking sun sets. If the sun was out at all, it looked like this as it went down:
Princeton RD. Sterling, MA. & a Sort of Equilibrium.
We sold our place in Tolland, CT. and would up renting up just north of Worcester, MA. With the separate garage filled with ‘stuff’ and frankly, not up to handling a full fledged, four season shop, I was sort of concerned that I wouldn’t get to set up here. However, once cleaned up and organized, the separate garage became home to my Dodge Monaco, ‘metal shop’ (as it were) and my wife’s car leaving the under house garage and another cordoned off space open.
While not incredibly roomy, the tools leave plenty of room to navigate the build of a decent set of cabinets (other storage assumed). Thus far, I’ve only built or repaired instruments in it but have slowly figured out ways to work and store larger projects. AND I have dust collection again. Finishing is a bit of a tight spot but I’ve worked out an under door exhaust system which seems to work pretty well. I largely use water based finishes now anyway so at least the VOC isn’t too bad. A lot has been done here, all four of the Custom Job Earth Series. I’m planning for an Archtop, a classical, an electric bass, and an oud which I hope to produce all of in the next two years.
The Studio room doubles as my instrument specific workshop. Nothing done in here that creates dust, just setups, electronic work and the like. It’s also turned into a great little studio space. I’m working on two new pieces right now, one was intended for large ensemble but will likely wind up being entirely recorded by me featuring others doing different stuff then assembled and mixed down by me. The other is a solo release I’ve wanted to do for a while. Honestly, it’s so fantastic to have all these instruments back again, practicing drums for the first time in like 30 years, randomly experimenting with things again … if that’s all I did, that’d be a pretty rad place to be.
Custom Job 