Since a couple of my favorite artists — namely David Bowie and Depeche Mode — have new music coming out this month, I thought it might be fun to get my imaginary electronic band, Android Invasion, back together for another recording. Their first studio outing since last year’s “Through the Trees” finds the band moving in a more traditional blues/rock direction with a guitar-centered track titled “Mr. Sin.” I actually wrote the song in 1994 or thereabouts, and it was inspired by a character in an episode of Doctor Who titled “The Talons of Weng Chiang.” In the episode, Mr. Sin is a diminutive 51st century cyborg with the brain of a pig who goes on a murder spree in 19th century London. To make money on the side, he also works as a ventriloquist’s dummy. Through an odd twist of fate, I managed to hire him for some session work on this track. (He plays drums and percussion.)
What We Do by Marc Schuster
I think a lot about order and chaos and our relationship to both and how the world in my mind is not the world in your mind and never will be no matter how hard we try. To express ourselves, to listen, to understand each other. We’re born into a world that makes no real sense initially, at least not to us, because all we know is that it’s colder than it was in the warm wet place we just were, glaringly bright by comparison, and filled with loud, horrible noises.
Big thanks to H. Conrad Miller for inviting me to write a guest post on his blog, A Side of Writing, today!
“Babylon Revisited” Notes
Thanks to my student Colton Bamford for capturing these (surprisingly tidy) notes on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Babylon Revisited.”
Money is volatile. It can evaporate quickly… but it can also reshape reality.
