In an attempt to reconfigure the atmosphere in which we live, I am musically mapping the San Francisco urban landscape, which is to say I am attempting to detail the way in which this city emotes and the interchange that occurs between its infrastructure, the buildings and other steel, concrete and brick structures that create the city’s horizon, and its population. Since there is a certain dialogue that occurs between us and our surroundings, I am trying to flush out the specific phonetic nuances that construct this interaction. At the core of the experiment is a desire to give meaning to the mundane individual images that coalesce in the creation of our surroundings: a veritable pastiche of sights, sounds, smells, images, and tactile experiences. How do we interact with the neighborhood in which we live? How do we interact with the freeways we utilize on our way to that office we interact with on a daily basis? In an age of globalization and an obsessive expansion of technology, we often move at too rapid of a pace to have any meaningful interaction with the fundamental foundations that allow us to network our lives. By slowing my pace, by extracting devices that divorce me from the urban landscape (such as vehicles) and strapping on an ipod at times, I’m hoping to reclaim a visceral interaction with the streets of the city, and by doing so to alleviate the alienation with which the urbane experience is riddled. After all, our existence is nothing if not a mere matter of creating knowledge, constructing meaning, and exploiting the hell out of it once it has been established; and I’m funneling this through the medium of music. And god damn it I’ll form this city in my likeness if its the last thing I do.

This will be an ongoing project that will subsist over the course of many months; at least that is my hope. What will follow during its duration is a collection of film shorts and narrative entries.

To get the ball rolling, I’ll give you the lyrics to a starter song by Rocky Votolato entitled Uppers “Aren’t Necessary,” which, coincidentally, is the song that stoked the flames of this experiential experiment.

Uppers Aren’t Necessary: Lead me through these cities of imaginary trends/Something’s gonna be changing come the morning time my friend/as fickle as these streets are they might not even wait around till then/ I’ve got a lot to lose so come and take it from me quick/everything you lose if it makes you stronger it makes you sick/take these cities from me I’ll build buildings up with my own bare hands/ the uppers aren’t necessary the guilt is the coal/ that keeps the fire burning to drive out the cold/ that creeps in every corner crack and never leaves you alone/ till the lonely messengers come calling you back home/ the trees are stacked in rows on the side of the road/ stripped of any dignity a birthing may have had/ a hundred thousand crucified on the Mojave I-5 line/ singers shepherds and salesman all longing for someone/ to kill the joy of wondering and end all their desire/ to help them to remember that the road is nothing but a liar/ the uppers aren’t necessary the guilt is the coal/ that keeps the fire burning to drive out the cold/ that creeps in every corner crack and never leaves you alone/ till the lonely messengers come calling you back/ to the red door, cracked and crooked walkway/ the fence impaling the stars/ ghostly keepers lead the way/ through the railroads of abandoned cars/ the tracks and city streets cut through the scars/the uppers aren’t necessary the guilt is the coal/ that keeps the fire burning to drive out the cold/ that creeps in every corner crack and never leaves you alone/till the lonely messengers come calling you back home.