As 2012 comes to an end, we are taking a look back at some of our favorite posts of the year by our guest editors.
Long before electronic wizard Dan Deacon released his commercial debut, 2007’s Spiderman Of The Rings, he’d gigged with a high-school ska band, earned a computer-music-composition degree from SUNY at Purchase, blew tuba for Langhorne Slim, shredded improv grindcore guitar with Rated R, started a chamber ensemble, co-founded Baltimore’s Wham City arts/music collective and released a series of experimental computer-music/sine-wave recordings. Deacon continues to pursue an eclectic musical course—his Carnegie Hall debut in March was part of a John Cage tribute—but his greatest successes have been in the electronic/dance scene. America (Domino), Deacon’s new album and the follow-up to 2009’s highly regarded Bromst, could cement his status as one of the country’s most adventurous and inspired electronic architects. Deacon will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on him.
Deacon: I’m sure we’ve all read the comment—on YouTube, Vimeo or wherever—”There’s four minutes of my life I’ll never get back!” Let me just take a moment to say, on behalf of all content creators on the internet, “I’m so sorry! Just think of all the living you could have done in those four minutes while trolling around on the internet. Oh, what a fruitful life you might have led if only you could have those four minutes returned to you. We inconsiderate artists and technicians spending month—even years—making something available to you for free to eradicate minutes of your time! You could’ve spent it watching something you knew you would have liked! Thank you so much for taking additional precious minutes from what must be an insanely busy schedule to draft that comment informing us of exactly how much time it took from you, and how impossible it will be to get it back. It really opens a dialogue about the tragedy of human existence in light of the irreversible march of time.”
