Dane D. Lion's Music Den ##############
blog comments powered by DisqusArtisan in Residence: Cyrus Despres
My brother is an artist artisan.
Cy and I are two years apart, I the elder. Much of our childhood and early adolescence was spent just a little too close. We did a lot together - built lego worlds in our rooms, played basketball in the driveway, completed the seemingly endless “to do” lists that dad put together (only in his head, mind you), and hung out during weekends and school vacations. Usually, these cooperative forays would begin well, brothers playing or working side by side, only to end in some minor squabble. We were too close NOT to be friends, but too close to ignore or let go of the little things, like friends always do. Awkward begins to describe it.
The one pastime that never (in my memory, at least) led to verbal or actual blows was music. Listening to and collecting music, to be exact. Around the time I got to high school, I had stopped blowing my allowance money on baseball cards and had started collecting music. Cy was soon to follow. I was into R&B and hip-hop - at least that which got airtime on MTV; I remember Cy being taken by the first round of post-grunge “alternative” artists like Beck (he bought the “Loser” cassingle) and Collective Soul. Being a music fan in the nascent days of dial-up web access in northern Maine often left you with little to go on when you made it to MusicLand on Friday night. ”What did you see during the 10 minutes of “120 Minutes” that you were awake for?” ”What’s that band that does the intro music for The Kids in the Hall?” ”I just read a paragraph-length profile of Fountains of Wayne in TIME; they sound cool.”
At some point, I remember staying up late on Friday nights in Cy’s room, taping the entirety of a weekly live Montreal DJ set of club music via some French-Canadian radio station. Guess which kids in Ashland were the first to know about such luminaries as Real McCoy, Corona, and The Outhere Brothers?!?!?! It was a source of secret pride that we shared almost exclusively, except on the rare occasion that we could wrest control of the JV basketball warm-up boom box. Or, as I did once, awkwardly DJ a high school dance and for most of the night play music that only two people in the room knew. UNGH! YOU WILL DANCE TO THE CLUB REMIX OF “LISTEN TO THE MUSIC” THAT I TAPED OFF THE RADIO, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!!! WHETHER THE DOOBIES LIKE IT OR NOT, TOO!!!
Soon, Cy and I were making mixes of our favorite tunes, usually by time period and genre. I pumped out four or five volumes of “R&B/Rap Hits” (“hits” in the second floor of the Despres house, that is) before I loosened my parochial sensibilities and included alternative music. We would play these mixes while we played NHL ‘94, while we mowed the three acres of lawn, and while we shot hoops in the driveway, speakers facing out of Cy’s windows. I remember (again, the version of the events in my memory) at some point, Cy asked me if he could add to the series. I said that he could. I remember not really caring until he asked me, not being aware that I was building something that was my own - that “R&B/Rap Hits” was a Dane Despres creation. Curation as creation. Like it was my title, something I owned.
And so our music worlds grew, and grew apart. I went off to college, and Cy stayed home with access to faster internet and MTV2. I continued making collections of my favorite songs for the 4.5-hour drives between Ashland and Brunswick. Cy continued making mixes for his own purposes, too, purposes and times that I only snatched brief glimpses of during breaks. Music continued to be our safe zone, though; it usually was the first topic of conversation whenever we reconvened.
We continued in that way for years, until about 2003, or so (2005). It was around that time that Cy sent me a mix tape that was a message unto itself. I had dubbed side A sometime during college, and had left the half-finished tape behind in northern Maine. It had a bunch of alterna-pop and indie rock that clearly owed a lot to the Beatles and the Beach Boys. I titled it Pop Secret, like these were the tunes that sweetly melted me and no one else. Before sending it to me, Cy had finished side B, continuing the theme - lots of e6 (Elephant 6 Collective, FYI) bands and memorable melodies. Most of the bands I had only heard of - not heard. It was a secret shared. That tape carries a resonance beyond that of the metal wound inside its casing. When I looked at the tape, held it in my hand, I felt the acknowledgement, appreciation, and continuation of the secret that we forged in our adolescence. I felt us coming together again.
Since Pop Secret, there have been many mixes and secret codes shared between us, and with each new one, the continued building of a new covenant. Cy has pushed the envelope, the designs, the messages with each new mix. His last two, I’ve documented below. Before I share those, though, I want to announce that this blog will feature his work for the next six months. I’m proud to share his work with you because it blows me away. I want witnesses. I want an excuse to record my thoughts, to consider the meaning of it to me. More than anything, though, I want to build on that new covenant.
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Tomorrow, I will post an entry about Cy’s most recent mix, with pictures, track list, and an interview with the artist. To prepare, check out some of his previous mixes:
1. It’s Not Christmas (December 2010): Our father died in February of 2010. He loved no time of the year more than Christmas. Cy and his wife had flown out to New England for the holiday and he gave me this mix when we picked them up from the airport. We listened to it on the trek up to Aroostook County. I’ve listened to it countless times, in order, and in iTunes by the single track. Each time, I learn something new about Cyrus, about myself, about dad, or about the relationships between us. And, about death.
2. Dos Bros (July 2011): Cy and his wife traveled east once more, this time in the summer. This mix is a two-CD set that features 3D glasses and much more insight about our ties to The County, our coming up, and our stereoscopic (and -phonic) beings forging a closer shared consciousness.
