A Written Brief Musical History Of Mine; or; A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man; or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Song
by Occult Fan
Musician Speak Engaged: Rock Star Super Hero Origins! Thrills! Chills! Pills! Sexual Happenings! More!!!
Dig it baby.
Dig it like a polaroid pyramid.
8 years old, 1992/1993 – I convince my teacher during a class that I can play the Super Mario Bros theme
I proceed to do so
mostly well. 8/10. I had no idea what I was doing. I just went with it. She was great. Lived on my street.
1996 – Middle school music course has me taking trumpet. I always admired the cock crow at dawn bugle army or military call to order and the angelic bright heavenly vocal and freedom of it… love trumpet. Sax too, which is what I wanted but for price and the morning call to rising which trumpet represents for me is what made this sixth grade start make sense. Soon thereafter…
Ok. 1996/1997 – I get my first electric guitar. Christmas, ’96. Black. Squire. White pickguard, now she’s, ah! Miss Ambrosius Anarchy (I was a kid, but, the name sticks, and it rocks, and) she’s covered in mirrors and black sharpie ripping, like totally shredding, across the board, pickguard, the word TRUTH.
[[[1998 – I started to get cell salt assaulted and that really fucked with my neurochemistry as a youth. Fuck you pharma. Fuck you very much.]]]
1999 – I get my first acoustic. Unnamed. Samick.
[[[2002 – I die. Wearing a white teeth Tool shirt. Resurrected I awake and attack the monsters which turn out to be nurses. Nice try! Heh, but yeah. I was back in limbo for a while until the end of HS, which, like the Tool song, technically I never really graduated. I mean, not in any measurably statistical meaning besides the piece of paper which is truly barren.]]]
Unnamed, she went on to die and be reborn before being utterly torn to pieces by a pack of wild hyenas.
Then whatever I had been doing for High School was transmuted into ‘ok go slave’. Diploma? Ok!?
It would take me like nine years from June 2003 to Aug 2012 to finally graduate with a triple major triple minor on one piece of paper. I feel it has the same value as my hs dupeloma. How I feel. What it is. I’m not here for Philosophy/Psychology/English Majors/minors Neuroscience/Law/Film. MUSIC IS WHAT I AM HERE FOR THAT WAS ALL GREAT TO STUDY and it does inform my Art. I’ve spent so much time too with so many different cultures, and my musical influence back to childhood was so eclectic, so all of these sources of knowledge, from law to neuroscience to film minors and my … basically the same thing Majors (Phil/Psy/Eng) – it’s My Music.
Music, ‘coz all I did, after going back and basically starting again in 2009 Fall I just used my Gator Case to bring my guitar to school every day and play there to the ocean. Have I mentioned I am a siren? That comes later. Be nice, Ok?
So back to our sordid tale here of rock star, ahem, Rock Star preparation and such. For to do what we do is not for mortals mere. So! I’m at one of these other schools, and, since we’re talking music, which is what I’m here to do:
2003 – Unnamed, she (unnamed Samick) went on to die and be reborn before being utterly torn to pieces by a pack of wild hyenas.
2004 – I begin playing around UMass Dartmouth campus and various beaches around Dartmouth, New Bedford, Fall River, Westport.
2005 – Spring Semester – One semester of music at UMass Dartmouth. Total fucking fail. No focus.
One semester of music lessons at Framingham House of Music. Drinking too much to focus.
2006 – June [6] 6th, 2006. 6006 AL. I become Occult Fan.
Several songs are recorded during this period.
These will go on to be released on the s/t Occult Fan album
About ten days later I would see Tom Petty (on mushroom honey) and Thom Yorke (Radiohead!)… (on LSD)… just…
It would change my entire life.
Later that summer I would stay overnite at Apollo Sunshine’s farmhouse. I drank wicked hard and had a sublime experience before losing all consciousness. Man I can live hard sometimes.
Ah. I forgot. 2005 – 2007 I hosted a late nite college radio show – all sorts of stuff – Modest Mouse, Pixies, Radiohead, Tool, Kate Bush, The Mountain Goats, The Books, Les Paul & Mary Ford, Marcus Miller, Andrew Bird, Porcupine Tree, The Arctic Monkeys – the show was called ‘Free Radio’. Took it from a shirt in 2001’s Waking Life.
So.
I got to see Steve Earle play Copperhead Road, and oh
my
god
Buddy Guy played right up to me, all of us, and he was just DOING IT MAN.
Inspiration for sure.
Oh and I had this thing
So 2006 was pretty huge.
Like I said, it changed my life. After I had my experience that evening with Thom, four months later…
Four months later I would get a chance to speak one to one with Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree!!!!!!!!
Boston, Oct, 2006, saw Sonic Youth like the month before… a Sox player, was it Johnny Damon, was there – that was great – so that was Sep, or so, and then Oct I get, I shit you not, we’re at Newbury Comics and there’s this gigantic line and Divine Providence steps in and I’m at the back of the line, there are two doors, one where the normal entrance is, where noticeably normally everyone is lined up cued from.
Ascending order changed to descending and somehow they opened the door that was in front of me and I was able to walk straight away up to the very front of everything and there was Steven Wilson himself. Now like when I met Alex Grey, I knew to be very respectful. I kept my comments quick, but clear and incisive. I said ‘thank you Mr Wilson your work has meant very much to me and you have been a huge inspiration’. I’m pretty sure he said something like, oh very well and good, or that’s all right, I think more like the latter, he was in his own mode and my comments were not what he was looking for to be having before the set at Newbs but I made sure to get them in there and I saw they registered, though he could probably not recall that, somewhere, I made him know, back when I was still just starting. Four months earlier I had become Occult Fan, and preceded to have massive musical experiences at Roo. Then Wilson. Oh, and like, he definitely knew what I told him. The forces got weird. Good weird. I ran into Chris Maitland – the touring guitarist at the time, and he was like, hey, Chris’ Friend, we’ll call him Epic Old Dude, coz that’s what he was – like – after SW was doing Newbs he was off to a show at Berklee.
So Epic Old Man like literally has an extra ticket. And my friend who was with me (lovely girl, I uh… yeah) ahem so got her a ticket too through like total kismet and we saw this show. OMG. Epic Old Man was going ABSOLUTELY BONKERS GO BANANA NUTS he was ALIVE ON FIRE it was great. He was like, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LUCKY HOW RARE HOW FUCKING AMAZING AND EXCELLENT AND SPECIAL THIS IS? Like this was just the opening band.
Which happened that night to be
2007 – Several songs are recorded during this period. I fall into the ocean of drink. A Babette’s Feast. It began with me making out with a girl who had wanted to kiss me since I got to that place. Anyways, I kinda decided to leave after that and then worked for a year at different Stop & Shops, Best Buy, et et.
A note on Best Buy, a Minnesota company, like Prince, heh, where I lived a few years near The Twin Cities. The one I worked at was in the same town Bro Albert Pike was educated in. It was a great place to work for music and film and games – upon reflection, the discount I was given, the products available, and that I was able to mostly control the radio playing over the store speakers was a great feeling.
2008 – More playing daily. Acoustic guitar. I begin to play pianos at mandated AA meetings.
Jan, Feb, March 2009 – I play some Boston open mics. I am recorded at Cantab Lounge (RIP!)
Spring/Summer 2009 – Collab w/ Pat Luddy – “Rabid Angel” Available on Spotify! (ha! soon…)
I got to spend time with Daniel Johnston backstage at Lupo’s in Rhode Island…
2010, 2011, 2012 I’m playing guitar at school, dealing with life, and having some Viktor Frankl/Erich Fromm/Wittgenstein/Nietzsche/Kant/Gilgamesh/Samurai thing going on. I graduate with said piece of paper, heh, after like, the VERY LAST SECOND and it was Aug of 2012.
In that period, I got my ukulele and mandolin and violin and a blue acoustic Rogue, Unnamed.
Leilani is my ukie’s name – thanks for asking!
Four months later – DECEMBER 21, 2012
Occult Fan self-title has 18 main tracks and one bonus track with limited edition art to make nineteen tracks with rare raw visuals from the period of recording.
A note about how I began and how arduous it was for me to make my songs, which, you must understand, I am the point and picture of prolific artist. I have hundreds and hundreds of recordings, almost all of them songs in their own right.
I would have to record them using a sony digital voice recorder intended for office meetings. Talk about Professional Musician!
I would have to first hit record. Play. File is stored. I have a series of files. Each has very long codes of numbers for their respective file names based upon the time which they were recorded at and in which order. So each file I have to manually click each file through on the recorder, and get this – I have to use windows media player (oh god, that and what was is, audacity!!!) to, this is Summer ’06, Summer ’07, but first Summer oh six and I’m running a two ended, male to male cable, sony digital voice professional office recorder ha into my headphones jack on my old dell lappy.
Shit man. So many hours of playback, playing each song back. It’s been a long, long, long journey.
We Continue. Constant.
One part of me is a giant sea turtle/tortoise who is just making his way through, slowly but surely.
Sometimes swimming, Sometimes on land
Always moving toward the objectives, each and every day.
A note, the reading I’m doing right now, what, Spring/Summer of 2024, after having been successfully getting new recordings out and new tech to use and all sorts of manner of array of new skills increasing from my natural talent – God Gifted Gratefully – that is to say, I’m making new friends too in the local music scene and even last night a band manager was pointed out to me by a Brother who knows him through church, which, this guy also tours the world and is a professional musician and I’m like, ok, thank you God.
I am a Pisces Ascendent or Pisces Rising. Things just come through me, in an artistic sense.
I am a specialist in vortex rhythm guitar. I will be using Occult Fan as a project to expand my more metal and pure prog rock/punk aspects of my music. Onwards!
I think 2013 I did a lot of odd jobs, security, book sales, random shit. Most importantly, in October, I got my first Arturia. A MiniLab with it’s 50’s diner seasurf jazzy art vibe feels – love at first sight.
I bought it with the change I found in my new car at the time. Mhm. Meant to be.
Electronic music would be something I would come to embrace more and branch out to but first…
2014 – I begin Busking in Boston. I hit a major win busking at South Station, creating a ton of energy, and making really great money.
2014 Fall/2015 Spring – I also, like, I went to Cannabis College aka New England Grass Root Institute.
2016 – I am playing music privately, getting into deeper esoteric things.
2017 – I meet Alex Grey at COSM, that’s a story for another time… I took my EA on Oct 9.
My first day as a Mason is Oct 10, 2017. Ten years earlier, In Rainbows was released. Ten.
My life hasn’t taken the shape of so many others. I’m an extremely hard worker. Protestant work ethic hit points high here. I’m also a Pisces rising. and Sag Midheaven. With Neptune and Mars and Uranus.
Trine my Leo Moon which is a whole other part of this mystical path I walk.
First electronic song was made at this time using the Arturia Keylab which I had purchased in Oct 2013 to finally record something which would pave the way for my next level of music which allowed for electronic experimentation. Beyond the pure acoustic guitar and vocals and piano of earlier phases, including my as unyet-mentioned piano project “Invincible Summer”… of 2007 – 2009.
So we have my esoteric evolving into initiation. It turns out I have an interdimensional/intergenerational thing going on. So evolution is a huge part of my story. Helping us all be our best selves is a big thing, part of tikkun olam or just healing and then being the best strongest sexiest version, all of us, who choose. Yee.
Ok, so that’s like I do that, AMORC, Masonry, Scottish Rite, York Rite, Royal Arch, Most Excellent Master, Knight Templar. That takes us up to 2023. I am approaching the tenth degree in AMORC. There are other educational components, Theosophy via Universal Theosophy, for example, and I am a student of Steiner as well as Gurdjieff and taoism, as well as a ‘low level owl’, and a disciple of sorts of Spazittarius David Allen Hulse – I am a huge fan of languages – especially the shapes and magical numbering and mystical aspects behind them – I’ve made my way through most of both of The Key of It All – another pair which acts as one unified whole, if I may say so myself. Elus Cohens work is of especial interest to the White Lodge in the Twin Peaks or Theosophical sense of things. Hey There, Elvis! ^^
So in that time, I ran a successful podcast titled Six Of Swords [currently on hiatus in favor of music and writing work, as you plainly see], and 8 years after releasing Occult Fan self-titled on Dec 21, 2012, the Twin Peaks: The Return / Twin Peaks season II Jupiter/Saturn conjunction occurred.
My life has a pretty huge like… divine hand invisible.
Yes Oui Si
So on Dec 21 AND Dec 22, 2020
For one side of each of the conjunction. I, a Knight of No Agenda, and Local Host of the Boston Red 33 Red 33 No Agenda Meet Ups, did name each one, a version, to each of the hosts of No Agenda;
and further, I made one dedicated to USA and the other to Japan. So there’s an American and a Japanese Version. Adam is the former, John the latter.
this feeling of chasing the spring rain… ah, so this was 2021. I then proceeded to release a series of singles under this new moniker of Nathan Lee And His Deep State for around two or so years, along the way in July of ’21 releasing the two albums, collectively A Bad Robot Daycare, previously referred to as A BadRobot DayCare and A BadRobot DayCare ^^, both are available as simply A BadRobot DayCare.
So.
This is where I began to branch out from strictly acoustic to allowing for more freedom of expression in electronic music. Nathan Lee And His Deep State was born.
At first we started with guitar, some Sirius sfx
but then a miracle occurred
praise Trogdor
This project would see me go back and forth between full-out electronic experimentation and back to my roots as a singer-songwriter with the acoustic guitar and human/angelic voice. Ah.
I used this to get over a particularly intense period of grieving.
I hope you are all ok.
I want you to either be feeling a-fuckin’-ok, or just, feel free to reach out to someone who might need it.
So this is like, 2022 is about to be here.
This was played on my dear friend Miguel’s Aeon Byte with David Icke on the episode it was played on. That was awesome.
Pure, raw, ohmygod.
July, 2022 –
We also have further deep electronic exploration here: Oct 21, about 7 months prior:
Back to 2022: April 4th, 2022:
Now one must take into consideration all of the astrology behind all of these times. All of the software I’ve purchased for my profession to have the gear that makes the cut. I have Arturia’s entire synth suite, as well as their SFX, and several of their custom quality crafted sounds, including both DX7 packs.
Nobuo Uematsu and Koji Kondo and B’z and The Pillows and Cibo Matto even have been such a big part of my life… the Japanese culture is important to me, art, music, history, and on – my father both as a Pastor taught English at Christian schools in Japan, but when I was a child he inundated us with Japanese toys (ha, I had OG Gundamns!!!) [they were SO COOL I had this giant green one that walked oh man I loved that thing so much we put it together it was so cool]… ok. I love robots. Cool ones.
So Cool a One.
Then 2023 comes around and I released the very final few NLAHDS songs, once of which is a tribute to comic author and novelist Grant Morrison… I ran TIRG with so many cool varying people over 5 years, including one year to read Nameless/Luda/The Multiversity/The Filth, before finishing year 5 with The Invisibles one more time. By the end of it, everyone who was in The Invisibles Reading Group had joined AMORC.
So what’s next? Since I have Occult Fan to use for my straight ahead rock outputs, and I have Nathan Lee And His Deep State for my electronic and other experiments, and Trip Hop, which, I have such a deep love for hip hop, trip hop, like, Aesop Rock, Atmospere, Eyedea, Doseone… and Boards of Canada, Bola, you know? Massive Attack, Nightmares On Wax, DJ Shadow, Tim “Love” Lee… Even like Chairlift and Matt and Kim and College and Kavinsky feat Lovefoxxx, you know. So it’s like that, and somewhere along the way, this idea to fuse prog rock and trip hop happened, likely along the way of working some Newport Tower things and the Liturgy of Hermes, and I also must credit the Nine Muses, All, and released right when Pluto went in to Aquarius, so, to start off not only the Spring of the year with ’23, but also to start off The Age Of Aquarius, using astrology itself, and once these retrograde cycles are complete come the end of Fall 2024… well, here ’tis:
Lately I’ve been learning all sorts of … hidden things … you either can or you can’t … and you’ll see it or you won’t, and that’s not my job in this case Garfield Minus Garfield mayhaps but so listen:
Nathan Adler
Nathan Stone
Nathan Explosion
First, there’s Nathan Adler:
Feb 11, of all days.
https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/tag/diary-of-nathan-adler/
Adam Curry plays one Rock Star Nathan Stone
https://swampthing.fandom.com/wiki/Smoke_and_Mirrors_(Episode)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098919/characters/nm1078505
Brendon Small voices Nathan Explosion, does his music. [Do you folks like coffee?]
David Lynch is just full of beans!
And I’m a place where there is always music in the aire.
I’m currently looking for a band manager to get me in front of more people, social media the right way, and to get to know musicians I care about and respect and make even better music and events and things happen in this world. I love my work. I’m a Craftsman. My music is both my art and my science and my work and my Soul.
As we head into Summer ’24, I write songs that get catchier and catchier and more meaningful and more and more meaningful and in my own way, revolutionize art for where we are at in this larger story of storyes. This is a very exciting time to be alive, and an even more exciting time to be an Artist. I love Music. Thank you for reading about a brief history of mine. I love Music.
Dedicated to The Nine Muses
Occult Fan 