Hi ! tell us a bit about yourself, your daily routine. ( work, education, pastimes )

First and foremost, I am a family man (leave me alone, my bark is much worse than my bite, etc). After that, I'd identify myself as one half of the electronic music duo, Shrimps. I also work a 9-5 job as a System Admin for local government because bills gotta get paid. So then somewhere in the cracks between those roles, I write the BLEO solo tracks. Oh yeah, I also help run the netlabels resofame.com and hexawe.net.


Can you tell us about the approach you have towards creating music?

I always write music that I would personally like to listen to and I don't stop until I have something that I would enjoy bumping in the car or playing while hanging with my friends and family. I often try to make one thing (funk song, skweee song, etc.) and almost always end up with a finished product that is nothing like what I set out to do. And I'm fine with that. Letting the universe, my surroundings, my mood, whatever influence it might be... help steer me one way or another gives the music something extra personal and magical. I guess that's my ultimate goal: make it mean something.


Can you tell us a bit of your workflow? How do you bring your projects to fruition?

BLEO, though something I consider a "side project," yields a very abundant output of songs, much much more than my "main" band, Shrimps. This is largely due to the fact that all of the BLEO songs are written using the cross-platform software littlegptracker aka "piggytracker," allowing me to write on-the-go using a Sony PSP or any Windows computer. The project files are small enough so I can easily switch my works in progress from one platform to another in a few seconds. The Sony PSP version allows me to compose on the bus, on the toilet, in bed, etc., so time/space isn't a constraint in the writing process. I also have the program and all of my project files stored in my Dropbox. The Windows build paired with the Dropbox folder allows me to have all my finished and in-progress songs organized and accessible anywhere in the world wherever there's a Windows machine with internet access. I don't HAVE to be in the studio and I don't HAVE to have any of my own gear. 


How is it to be an artist in your city? (Geneva, NY)

Absolutely fantastic. Geneva is a small city in the rural Finger Lakes region of New York State, the heart of a booming wine country. It's where my family is from and it's a pretty great place to live, aside from the standard horror of living in the U.S., you know. And I am extremely fortunate that my music is welcomed, accepted and enjoyed here. That wasn't always the case, though. 10 years ago the music scene was horrible. There were no gigs unless you were in a cover band that could play three sets. However, thanks to a recent resurgence in the arts (and in being weird in general, both of which Geneva was famous for in the 60's and 70's when my father was growing up and playing in bands), we've found many places to play right in town lately. When Shrimps first got started, we played our first gig in Manhattan, then played Rochester and Philly... all before playing in the city we actually lived in. Thankfully, those days are behind us. We can luckily still get gigs in other cities, but we can also play a gig a few blocks from my house. A few weeks ago we put on a show at a local microbrewery, with electronic acts coming from New Mexico, NYC and Philly. These guys couldn't believe the quality and size of the crowd and actually said the show was better than most they play in NYC! So yeah, LOVE GENEVA.


What do you think of the way things are currently in the record industry?

Well I'm not sure if the internet made things better or worse. On one hand, here I am releasing music on a Montreal-based label, thanks to the internet. I've forged some life-changing friendships and musical allies, thanks to the internet. But there's no denying that this same internet that gave every musician a chance to be heard also gave the consumer the almost impossible task of selecting what to listen to. Netlabels help a ton. People can find a label that consistently puts out solid music and follow what they release. Blogs are good like that, too. But between the almost infinite amount of indie stuff available and the ease of piracy or even legal streaming, the actual major label side of the industry is dead. We're in the 4th quarter of 2014 and there have been exactly ZERO platinum records awarded this year. That's just stunning to me. I think it's great that the sales are spread out to little guys like me, but I also miss the old A&R model of the golden age of the record "industry." I never really thought about it like this until my friend and mentor, Peter Swimm, pointed out that the days of finding real raw talent and making a "star" are long gone, replaced by straight up mass marketing so the major labels can stay afloat in this economy. Let's take Jimi Hendrix as an example. Don't think for a second that I don't totally worship him because I totally do, but I'm not sure if that guy would have been the legend he became if it wasn't for his agent/management. They hooked him up with the Experience. They gave him the tools and the producer he needed to realize his vision and they did this partially because they were excited by his talent but also because they knew they could make a ton of money. If Hendrix was an up and coming artist today, would he achieve any success beyond moderate viral YouTube notoriety? Well dude, we just don't know. So I'm not so sure I like any of this at all. 


What are you reading / watching / listening to these days?

Over the course of the past year, I've been casually trying to learn about qi gong. So when I do have some time to read, I've been slowly working through "The Way of Qigong: The Art and Science of Chinese Energy Healing" by Ken Cohen. It was given to me as a gift from a friend a few years back. It's a must-read for anyone interested in qi gong. It's not only a how-to reference guide but it also covers qi gong's long history as well as a detailed breakdown of the science behind it.

Recently I've been listening to Tool's "Lateralus" album pretty much nonstop. It's the band's best album and it's complex enough that I doubt my smallish brain will ever fully be able to get sick of it. But it's not appropriate for every occasion so I've also been falling back on my usual favorites like Tears for Fears or Ween or Hall & Oates. Hmmm all duos there, huh?  

As far as watching stuff, I've just been checking out really crappy action movies 10 minutes at a time on Netflix. It's pretty much all I can handle at the end of the day when I'm done being productive. Probably the only good movie I've seen in the theater all year was The Lego Movie. It was totally psychedelic and hilarious.  


What’s your favorite record?

It's so embarrassing to say it and it's so uncool these days, but my favorite record is "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It's just a damn masterpiece: the ace musicianship and physicality, the unique sound, the seamless flow from track to track, the deep funk, the feeling of brotherhood shared between these guys just oozes from the music. No other record sounds like that one, not even any of the Chili Peppers' prior or later albums. I probably haven't listened to it in 10 years, but I think I have to say it's my favorite. When I was a teenager, I enjoyed listening to this album with friends. When I was in my 20's, I enjoyed this album with other friends by learning every note of it and playing live all the way through (I played bass). If you hate the Chili Peppers and you've never heard that record, listen to it all the way through and you might change your mind about them. However, you might end up hating them more for never stepping it up like that ever again! I do also have to say that almost all of Frusciante's solo records rule, though!


What’s next for you?

A lot of my focus these days has been on running these two labels, Resofame and Hexawe. Resofame specializes in releasing real soundtracks to fake movies. We release each soundtrack with movie posters, storyboards, scene synopses and all sorts of other bonus materials that help paint a picture of what the movie (that doesn't exist) is about. It's up to the audience to fill in the rest with their imagination. We've released one soundtrack so far (yeah, I wrote it) but we have a few ready to come out in the next few months and we are definitely looking for more submissions (wink, wink). Hexawe specializes in releasing music written exclusively with piggytracker and was founded by my dear friend, Jordan Gray aka Starpause. In true open-source spirit, we include the songs' project files with each release, allowing anyone to see what tricks and methods were used to create the finished product. Studying these project files is how I cut my teeth with the piggy. My understanding of synthesis and electronic music production is what it is today mostly thanks to this label, so it's an honor to now be able to give back to this community by helping out as a label boss as well contributing as an artist and passing on my own tricks.

Artistically, I'm currently working on a new EP with Shrimps. We play everything live, which is pretty unheard of for an electronic act. Zero sequencing. So when we're writing and recording, we actually have to practice and work hard to get good takes! It feels great, though. The other guy in the band, Joe Calabrese is a true talent, outstanding musician and definitely my musical soulmate. We never, ever have creative differences. Our musical tastes vary, but probably less than any two other people on this planet. This new material is definitely rocking and it's a nice evolution of our sound.

And then there's the super-secret rap album I'm working on with chip music banjo legend, Bud Melvin. We're called Spoonicorn. All the tracks are being written with the aforementioned piggytracker and we're shooting for a 2015 release. Guess it's not a secret anymore, huh?