“Hero” and “Rise”
07.26.2025
“Rise” and “Hero” are blasts from the past – 2006 to be specific. I created them in GarageBand on my first Apple computer, a 2005 iMac. I wasn’t new to working with loops (remember FruityLoops?) but found Apple Loops refreshing. iMovie and GarageBand were the sole reason I switched from a Windows computer in the first place. And as it is how my brain works, I create something to learn a new thing.
Before 2006, the original music I composed was either on a nylon-string or steel-string acoustic guitar. My GarageBand compositions lived on a secret MySpace account under the name Status Factor, my solo electronic band, where I uploaded music for an entire year. Why it was “secret” I don’t know but it gave me freedom to experiment. I created and uploaded five pieces. Sadly, only “Hero” and “Rise” survived the big MySpace wipeout in 2019.
If I overlook the horrible mix and low-quality MP3 format, these two pieces bookend my sonic explorations that began with producing radio plays a few years earlier.
Since 2006, I’ve occasionally recorded a musical phrase fluttering through my head into the iPhone, or captured field recordings on my Zoom recorder. Unfortunately, my guitar skills dwindled, and I had zero ambitions to record anything seriously.
That changed in March 2020.
07.26.2025
About
Welcome to the new Guitarkadia – me, creating audio-based original work.
I’ve been playing guitar since I was 15. I was never great at learning my favorite bands’ music and so from early on, I always wrote my own.
In my early 20s, I made a living teaching guitar and playing in bands in New York City. I performed at CB’s 313 Gallery, Orange Bear Bar, Continental, Elbow Room, etc., not to mention countless restaurants here and there. For a short time, I even busked with a group at South Street Seaport. My fondest memory from those Seaport days was when the band played a cover of “Proud Mary” and over twenty firefighters who happened to be in the area joined in. This was not long after 9/11 and these heroes singing with us will forever be etched in my mind.
In 2002, I recorded a demo of my original music at a friend’s basement recording studio in Bayridge, Brooklyn. The compositions were written for the acoustic guitar and heavily influenced by bossa nova, tango, and middle-eastern music. Yet it was only a year later that I sold all my amps, processors, and foot pedals, deciding to pause music making and teaching to focus on making films and finishing grad school.
Me in the early 2000s, in a Bay Ridge, Brooklyn basement rehearsal space: most likely excited about lunch options at the local middle-eastern resturants. That Yamaha is still my main steel-string.
That pause didn’t end until the 2020 lockdown when I took my damaged Ibanez JS-100 out of its gig bag and rigged it well enough to plug it into Ableton and Logic Pro. And just like that, the joy of making music returned to my life.
I have to pay tribute to the old Guitarkadia, my “Stories around Guitar” blog that thrived between 2008 and 2018. Launching Guitarkadia back then, writing and creating videos and taking photographs for it, changed my life as an artist. The work I did for the blog led me to put my 10K plus hours into the craft of storytelling.
Guitarkadia launched my career as a photojournalist and filmmaker, including getting my break to become a regular New York Times contributor. In short, I owe much of my career to Guitarkadia.
When I decided to officially launch a sound+music project this year, it was clear where it should live. For me, this meant retiring everything Guitarkadia was prior to today’s launch (at least for the moment).
And so, welcome to the new Guitarkadia, on its 17th birthday, saying hi from New York City.
07.26.2025
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