By Patrick La Roque
Two, three times—over the course of this strange, meandering life—I tried quitting. The guitar would go hiding in its case, the synths would go up against a wall somewhere. They’d gather dust for a few months but it never lasted. I once described it to myself as a sort of virus or bacteria, not so much flesh-eating as soul-eating, but just as voracious and cruel in its relentlessness.
As a kid I’d draw fake album covers. As a teenager I’d sit for hours on end, staring at the sprawling double-canvas of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, imagining Slippermen and Lamias on rain soaked New York City streets. Gabriel wailing as Rael. To this day, Fly on a Windshield/Broadway Melody of 1974 affects me deeply—and Lenny Bruce remains emblematic, almost mystical because of it. Those sounds, images and references shaped my mythology and I still vibrate when I hear a Mellotron or a Solina, my brain electrified and unable to resist the drag of the machine.
That hungry, hungry Time Machine.
...
We wear masks to define ourselves. It doesn’t make us dishonest, it doesn’t mean we’re hiding behind a facade—not necessarily anyway. I think we wear masks to better understand the theatre. And on the opening essay of this new series, I need to acknowledge my very first play: before photography there was music. There will always be music.
In heartbreak
devastation & cruelty.
In freedom & blissful exaltation.
