I have been using music recently as a means to trigger different moods and creative energy. My love for so many different genres combined with the way different albums and songs have bound to different parts of my life leave me able to use music as a tool to fine tune my creative drive. Using the familiar notes and melodies of personal favorites brings back memories of life spent listening to them and can put me in a place of reflection or nostalgia.

When I write, ambient music cures all distractions, warm tones and soundscapes wrap around my mind like a thousand pillows and leave me to focus when I feel there is no hope to get any real writing done.

Dance music stirs up a mixture of emotion for me because it gets me energized yet also manages to sharpen my focus with its driving simplicity and steady pace. I dig a little deeper into electronic music often as well because the creativity and sound design of the genera can go a long way into putting my mind somewhere totally unfamiliar.

There have even been times recently where I have been looking back to my as a teenage years and digging out old Deftones or other like minded heavier rock outfits to add a little angst to my mind which I have found to be oddly therapeutic in pulling my thoughts away from other busy work or distractions.

Music, film, even television at times, are usually classified purely as entertainment but I often see them in a more essential light. There is a reason the old “what albums would you want with you stranded on a desert island” is so hard to answer. Because more often than not, for many of us, these forms of entertainment are so much more than just entertainment, they become part of us.

This is what came to mind when I sat down to write something to accompany this image. My slow growing collection of records is a nod to my love for music and I have plans to eventually start a series of posts featuring my favorite records one post at a time.

The record playing here is by Small Sur and is one of my favorites so far this year, a year that has been pretty overwhelming so far with so much great new music coming out. You can check them out here. They only made 300 of these so if you enjoy what you hear, grab one while they are around!

The time is getting closer and closer to Google shutting down Reader for good and it’s about time I wrote to ask this simple question, where is everyone going to go from here? I just moved my RSS feeds on over to Feedly, at least for now, but I know many of you have other services you prefer to follow the web using. Would you like to see a fiftyfootshadows Flipboard magazine? A dedicated news feed on Twitter for new posts? A Facebook fan page type thing? Google +? Tumblr feed?

I would love to hear any thoughts or opinions on the services you use personally to gauge how best to move forward and make sure you guys still have a place to easily keep up with new posts as we move into a Google Reader-less future. As I continue to work on my long overdue update and refocusing of 50ft I want to be sure I don’t leave anyone out! While I don’t have time to support every service out there I am certainly keen to hear what you guys think. Feel free to use the comments to share any thoughts on the matter, thanks!

Quick addition: I am not out to replace RSS, not at all. I just wanted to ask everyone about their personal preference to be sure you are able to follow along here in your preferred format and to make note of anyone needing anything more than the RSS feed already available here.

Relax, let the wind take you where it wants you to go. This is what was written along with this image when I posted it over on Yesterday was only a while back with a handful of other images from a day spent out on a lake with YoungDoo and my brother. This is the same lake I often find myself exploring in one way or another and now that the weather has warmed up a bit we can find new areas via boat that are not accessible by foot. This time out we came across a whole colony of turtles and a number of other kinds of wildlife enjoying the spring day as much as we were. 

I love having the 5D with me everywhere I go now. Still after a few months of daily images I still don’t mind carrying it along with me, work, the lake, into restaurants and grocery stores, anywhere and everywhere its slung over my shoulder ready to catch anything that may be interesting. Of course there are days when nothing pops up but more often than not there are still moments I find that are fun to explore with the camera. It will surely be more interesting to visit the day to day process of this project after a good six months of shooting. 

The image above was well received and loved over on Tumblr so I thought there would be plenty of you who would enjoy this as a desktop image as well. Something to remind you that there is more to life than the screen you are staring at right now. Enjoy!

The last time I posted a photo of this typewriter you guys seemed to spin around in delight. Our attraction to old tech is undeniable and the lust for it surely stems from the desire to escape the day to day pressure to keep up with the new. While this old machine rarely gets used it is nice to mess about with from time to time and If I could get a couple of the keys to stop sticking I may actually put it to use in the future for a couple of things 50ft oriented. 

Speaking of the site, I have been doing my best to post at least once a week lately and plan to keep up that pace. Usually I shoot for monday unless something holds me back from publishing something new. I have been picking away in the background whenever I get a free moment to focus and I still can’t wait to share with everyone. At any rate, no need to ramble on about it just now. Till next time, enjoy the new desktop.

Pardon my Sentimentality, I wrote this a couple of days ago in Day One and felt it would be a nice thing to pair with an image. Remember I was talking about getting lost in details? Well this is me sharing one of those moments, perhaps a bit personal but why not share. Desktop links below!

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Today is the first day in forever I didn’t have to wake up and worry about getting to work on time, or missing a call, or fear I may be forgetting something. I woke up early, with not enough sleep behind me from the late night prior but I forced myself up anyway and went to a local weekly farmers market with YoungDoo. I felt connected to all the people who were there to celebrate life and food and good health. We bought vegetable plants, strawberries, and ate fresh pancakes then afterward spent a short while at the community garden planting the new veggies and enjoying the perfect spring weather.

I arrived at home tired but not ready to give up and nap so I put on a show and relaxed a while on the couch. After a simple lunch of food from the market I decided to light some incense, put on some music, and lay down a while for a much needed and deserved siesta…

…and that’s where I lay as I write this, quietly in bed, on this calm afternoon feeling time tick by slowly enough to recognize that I have a beating heart for the first time in what feels like months. Cool air falls through the open window beside me, incense smoke swirls about unpredictably in the warm breeze and casts a calm over the room I usually only get to daydream about through old photographs. Chatter sneaks in from people walking by outside and the meandering guitar of a calm song in my ears is in sync with my slowing breath…

This is surely the meaning of life. Love is in this space and I feel free. This is the reason we fight through the stress, the reason we try harder and harder every day to find happiness. Because it’s real, and waiting patiently for us to recognize its beautiful embrace.

Cheers.

I have always had a great response from the mixes I have made in the past. It’s one of my favorite things to post around here actually. Introducing great new music to others is something I find a lot of joy in. In the past I was one of those kids often making and receiving mix tapes then later, mix CD’s. (Anybody else remember Toast?) My love for finding interesting new music beyond the world of pop grew from a mix tape a friend gave me that still lingers in my mind at times. It was full of great indie rock and punk music and it kick started my addiction to finding great music hiding behind the big label marketing budgets.

Following my mix tape days I worked as a DJ at a college station at a school that I didn’t even attend. I had two shows even, one with a friend playing electronic and another new music show where I discovered so much of what I know and love about music today. If any of you have the opportunity to work at a campus station I suggest you take it, its a great experience. This also eventually lead to me taking live sound more seriously after volunteering my time (and my fathers resources in audio systems) to local shows in record shops and tiny back room venues around town. Wherever there was an indie rock show, I was there with a PA.

I have worked with so many amazing bands through the years because of those affiliations, Mount Eerie (aka. The Microphones), Viva Voce, Phosphorescent, Mark Kozelek, The Octopus Project, Lymbic System, THE MONKEYS (heh, well, Davy Jones at least), The Mountain Goats, Mount Moriah, Cat Power (In her awkward shy live days), Vetiver, Of Montreal, Jason Anderson, Damien Jurado, Lost In the Trees, Tobacco, Bob Log III, Akron Family, Warpaint, MachineDrum, Bill Callahan, Odd Nosdam, Mirah, Helado Negro, Des Ark, Monotonix (craziest live show ever), Beach House, Man Man, Six Parts Seven, 31 Knots, Tara Jane O’neil… haha, yeah you get the idea. There are just as many I don’t remember, point is that its been a pretty great run, and to think it all started with mix tapes.

Point being, music changed my life and sharing it is something I truly love to do. There is no genera that I frown upon. Music is music, and good music is universal so while I tend to have a common aesthetic on each mix I like to explore as many styles as I can in the process. This time around I was inspired by the shuffle mode on my iPod. I love the unexpected nature of using shuffle to listen to my music and I wanted to bring a little of that feeling to one of these 50ft mixes. So this version is both diverse and quite long. Right around two hours in fact! I suggest you set the file option in iTunes to remember the playback position. (FYI: One song is not clean for young ears but it’s modest.)

As always it is an AAC file so if you really aren’t feeling a song then you can jump ahead. Please, never re-distribute these. My intention is not to give away music, I will never make these available broken into individual tracks. I offer these purely for the love of sharing and introducing you guys to great artists. If you enjoy the music please, support the artists, buy their albums, see them live, send them love, it’s the only way to keep it alive.

Download the mix here without spoilers, or trying something new, here on S3 and play it like a radio station or peak into the playlist here.

I have lately wondered how it is we stand our day to day lives, addicted to frivolous information, constantly peering through one screen or another. The foreground of our attention in need of stimulation it feels as though there is always an itch we are unable to reach and once that feeling is satisfied it creeps in again somewhere else. We are information junkies, always wondering whats behind the next refresh. Lust for attention finds even the most humble of us trying to think of ways to get more followers, more attention, more, more, more. Peace is harder and harder to feel comfortable being around and silence is going to end up an urban legend as our ears become numb to the joyous emptiness open spaces can give us. 

I of course speak generally, not to you, not for you, but for the proverbial “we” in response to a feeling that I have been pushing against more and more as I feel the restlessness of not having time to get out and explore creep into my mind more and more as of late. I get anxious and a bit stir crazy if I don’t get a regular dose of fresh air, urban exploration, or time to get lost in something new.

So I take full advantage of any moments that leave me with the perception of time slowing down. I often catch myself using the ticking second hand on a watch as a reference point in gauging my level of internal calmness. The slower the ticking feels the more calm I feel. Sometimes a song can do the same thing, or a photograph, or a breeze blowing through a window. Any simple detail usually overlooked in the normal day to day rush of life. If I can loose myself in one single thought I know that there is still hope in my life for peace to exist, even among so much work, and color, and life. 

I took this photo last August soon after I moved into this apartment, I remember it well, laying quiet while the sun slowly set until the entire room started to turn vibrant shades of purple. I grabbed my camera and quickly found myself lost in capturing details that I was somehow getting lost in. Ones that made the second hand slow, my mind find peace, and the future seem bright. This is common theme among these pages but one that is a big influence on the photos I share here so I like to try and verbalize it whenever I can find more words to do so. 

My best advice during the days left in this Spring, always be on the lookout for details to get lost in. If you let too many slip by, you may forget what it’s like to get lost in your own imagination and that really is a horrible gift to waste. 

At any rate, March was a really great month for the project in my eyes and its now available over on Blurb in paperback and hardcover versions so head over and check it out.