I’ve recorded many hours of music, stretching all the way back to when I was a kid, banging on my Dad’s drums. I’m also a bit of a digital packrat. So when Shawn Van Every asked my class to make a self portrait, I dig a quick dig through the archives and pulled out some mostly rare recordings. Some are solo recordings, others were done with some or all of the members of Ninth Street Mission, and a few came from Ghost Ghost. I mapped each sound file to a big fat pixel on an HTML image map, which you can play with and listen to by clicking here.
Shawn asked me what this self portrait says about me. At the time I kind of fumbled around for an answer, saying something like “I guess I have a lot of recordings.” I’ve thought it over for a bit, and perhaps it reveals a little of the creative narcissism required to make music. I don’t know any musicians who don’t spend enormous effort reviewing their own performances and recordings. It might make you a little crazy. Maybe a little crazy is good though.
My personal favorite of my classmate’s self portraits is Katie Adee’s self portrait. Go get told off.