Vacuum tube punk

  

Childhood matters, formative experiences that shape what we seek in life. I guess I was in 7th grade, and it was my turn to say something in front of the class. I drew white diagrams on the blackboard, explained current flow, vacuum tubes, amplification, and tuned circuits that used a coil and a variable condenser. Bored kids complained. I didn't care whether they liked it or not. I had discovered radio and built a Boy Scout crystal set that worked, then a Knight Kit transmitter (pictured above). I have distinct kid memories of two bands of metal pinching my hair, uncomfortably hard earphones with woven cloth wires terminated in a banana plug. Top 40 tunes and the smell of solder. It was a short hop to 1/4" tape recording, then multi-track studio recordings, pro 24-track analog in Europe and pro 24-track digital in California. I used an infinity of video formats, film cameras and editing systems, physical, analog, and nonlinear. Everywhere I went in life there were waveform displays (vectorscopes and oscilliscopes) that tossed me back to a 7th grade blackboard, excited about electrical events measured in milliseconds. It was deeply satisfying that pro recording engineers all over the world liked the guts and gusto of vacuum tube vocal compressors. Guitarists used vacuum tube amps and analog magnetic pickups.

 

This is a photo of Pete Sears, a musician I filmed in 1995. Pete looks a little like Billy Larko deep in the third act, older, retired, or on the lam, in disguise — interesting concepts to kick around. Larko had an intensely challenging boyhood. He liked hot machines. My 9th grade science fair project was an electromagnetic rod that launched an aluminum ring high in the air. Larko built a steam powered donkey engine that winched a heavy block of lead across the floor without wheels or grease to reduce friction. Larko and I are completely different men. He knows how big commercial boilers make steam, unafraid to get his hands dirty to attack a dangerous problem. Billy Larko is tough and resolute, never lost a fistfight. I have to do some spade work to make that stick, to render the life and times of an ideal man. I'm confident that I can do it. Like I said in 2018: "I'm about the size of half a man, a physical and moral midget. It's a valuable perspective, because the scale and scope of greatness are easily discerned, just as country folk behold an amazingly tall skyscraper and say oooo!"