MINKA - Company Man

 / Try as I might, I cannot pinpoint the abashed love and influence from any one of the Talking Heads, The Cars, Devo, Prince or B-52s. From this astral plane, Dick Rubin, Max Perla, Joe Flack, and Barney Cortez have successfully ripped out the guts of the music their mothers were listening to while dancing feverishly in 1987 and replanted it 30 years into the future. They have taken this to over 100 house parties in Philadelphia in the past year and a half, and I anticipate these sweaty free-for-alls will be going beyond our humble town soon. 

// Letters to YVYNYL //

Prints Familiar - Find Your Dark Corner

 / I’m definitely feeling what Sydney's Oliver Badman discusses here in the introduction to his letter. Luckily, it’s helpful to stay positive, relaying a strong state of mind. And dancing. 

Hi Mark,

About a year ago I finished reading David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, a book I consider a metaphorical warning of the dystopia that western civilization is traveling toward (or already existing in) because of our relationship with technology and mind-numbing entertainment. With mindfulness being the word on everyone’s lips, trying to shake off our anxieties, fears and sadness in order to be in the moment; present, it’s hard to avoid being affected by the concept. I think we’ve all been in the zone, or in the moment at one point or another and paradoxically it’s the awareness of being in the moment that tends to pull me right back out of it.

One particular passage of the book (spoiler alert) is a man, a former drug addict, who’s been shot and is refusing opioid-based painkillers in fear of relapse. His existence is reduced to second after painful second, one heartbeat to the next, and it’s between each beat that life happens. Take a big problem and make it smaller. The character realizes that no second is unendurable, so long as you don’t think about the next minute (or tomorrow), think about the one you’re in. The old AA adage rings true, ‘one day at a time’.

I felt compelled to write a song about this.

It took a few months of jamming out ideas. Replacing one bass line and chord progression to something simpler, keeping the verse quite groove-driven, something to highlight the idea that life is here, it’s happening, something that says “won’t you join in and live in the moment? It’s always here, you just need to be aware that you have a choice”. For fear of sounding didactic or preachy, this is a reminder and a self-realisation, I’m talking as much to myself as I am to whoever may be listening. I’m definitely no wiser than anyone else is, and hope this song conveys this sincerity.

The chorus wasn’t coming until finally, a few days after hearing Nick Cave’s track “Rings Of Saturn” that it all fell in to place. It came out within ten minutes, that kind of brilliant, surreal moment where I’ve tapped into something that’s beyond me. I live for these kinds of moments. I turn up every day and write and compose and 99% of it’s rubbish, because that mildly transcendent feeling isn’t there. The one that makes sense of everything, the one that you can’t take ownership for, you just happened to be in the right place at the right time.  

The chorus is the flip-side of rejecting the idea of being in the moment or mindful, it’s the often-unconscious slipping down and out of control and having life passing you by faster and faster without you being able to do anything about it - without you being aware of it.

Kindest,

Oliver Badman

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steps - a documentary by Cason Miller