One week ago yesterday I loaded some gear into my car, picked up Dave Wren (Moulttrigger) at his house, grabbed some beer, and drove up to Boone, a small town west of Ames that a couple old friends come from but that otherwise doesn’t usually have much going on, where I took part in one of the most epic noise/experimental music gigs I’ve ever been to.

I consider “Zeitgeist 2012″ one of my great triumphs of 2012 even though I honestly don’t feel like I did a lot more than show up and play. But that’s the beauty of it, it came together so organically everybody just put in what they had to offer, though the biggest contributor was no doubt Trent Reis (Juxwl) who hosted it at his occasional show space known as the Elephungeon. I think it was also his PA that we used. Trent really came through big on this. Hell, there was even free food. Going into that weekend I knew this thing would be a success even if this bunch of freak sound artists just ended up playing for each other, because great things were bound to come of our just meeting each other in person, and honestly this scene is very participatory; we don’t care a whole lot about the artist/audience distinction; one thing I’ve noticed happens an awful lot when someone becomes exposed to this scene is that immediately want to start their own noise project. That’s probably why Henry Rollins said in that LA Weekly piece that noise is more punk rock than punk rock ever was. Turned out we got a few people who came just to check out the show, and I think they left with some great tapes and CDs and their minds reeling with sound and freedom. Zeitgeist was the kind of experience that really makes my synapses light up.

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Check it out in the sidebar over there, I added a calendar of shows I’m playing. My next one is a solo gig in Decorah.

I decided to keep the silly default title WordPress gives you for the “first post.”

My name is Chuck and this is my music blog. I decided music is worth blogging about. Being a musician myself, I wasn’t sure whether what I wanted was a website/blog for my own music projects, or a blog on which to write about other people’s music, since I come across so many great bands and things in the course of my normal activities. I decided to just try doing both and see how that goes.

It’s kind of an indie label too. I started using the name “The Centipede Farm” on my self-released projects a while ago, which has something to do with why I registered the domain name, then let it sit around for so long. I think the whole idea of a record label, at least on the small indie level, is in a state of transition, if not disappearance altogether. It seems like the thing for an indie music brand to represent these days should just be some kind of community of artists.

I’ll be posting music here, and likely to also be inviting some more people to write or post music as well.