Burnt Seeds - Dive

Roger Poulin sent me a story about some of the adventures he had spending time living and writing music in a semi-squat space in Oakland. Having lived in some half-finished warehouse spaces here in Philly myself, his stories struck a nerve. Helped that it worked perfectly with his new rippers like this one. 

Hey Mark,

I hope you’re well, man. Not sure if you remember me specifically, but at one point you premiered my old band, Lotus Moons, for our tune “Facing the Sun.” Things have been a whirlwind of awful and awesome since then, and unfortunately that band came to an end. At any rate, I think you might dig some of the new stuff I have been working on under the name Burnt Seeds. Oh and for my part, I still really dig your site.

In particular, our new single “Dive” has a pretty weird and rad genesis that you might be interested in. In 2013, everything seemed to be falling to pieces around me (probably a bunch of it was my own fault, to be honest.) When my relationship of three years came to a grinding conclusion, my landlord offered to let me move into one of his new properties- a 40,000 square foot abandoned factory in Downtown Oakland that was once called the Tien Hu Knitting Factory. They used to make Eddie Bauer clothing in there, I’m pretty sure. The landlord had a half formed notion about transforming it into live-work space for artists. I would be the first resident. My head was enough of a mess to decide that right at the end of a long term relationship, I should live entirely alone in an abandoned factory. I jumped at the chance.

The place was surreal as all hell. It was partially renovated, so that like ¼ of it was kinda decent, and the rest was rubble. The basement looked like a set from the Saw franchise, with exposed rebar and a weird metal cage that housed electrical equipment. The first floor was a huge, wide open space where I believe a lot of the industrial stuff used to occur. I liked to set up my amp in the middle of the night in there and blast it as loud as possible- the reverb in that room was nuts. The room I chose to set up in used to be the managers office and was on the second floor, so it had windows that overlooked the big factory floor (but no windows to the outside, ugh.) 

For some reason, I was never creeped out when I as in that space, even when I was alone- which was most of the time. By about week two, I had become fairly convinced that I was, in fact, the ghost who haunted the factory. There was a man who camped out sometimes in the front door area, and at night he would scream and pound on the chained metal doors. One night after a particularly loud bout of slamming, he started dropping flaming pieces of paper into the mail slot. My response was to turn on and off all the lights in the factory at once- this seemed to drive him off.

The only other people who were ever in there (and only during the day) ran a 3d print shop on the third floor, and also experimented with quad copter drones that would fly independently around the 3 floors of the factory on pre-programmed paths. The bathroom was far enough away that I sometimes rode my bike, and I would see drones buzzing past on my way there. I would climb up on the roof at night with my guitar and a cassette recorder, and make rambling recordings under the lights of the Oakland Tribune clock tower. Eventually, the loneliness of being in that factory, coupled with the fact that it was really REALLY not actually ready for residents, drove me out, and I moved in with some friends in a lovely West Oakland Victorian. I think that they are now converting the factory into condos.

I am on the East Coast now (DC area), and pulled out my dusty tapes not long ago. Among the dreck, I found what seemed like a bit of a gem- and thus, Dive was born.

Keep up the good work man! 

Peace,

Roger

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