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.
For someone with so many famous heads stuck on poles outside his jungle hut, you’d expect he’d put a little more “brag” into it. But the soft-spoken Eric Drew Feldman lets his keyboard playing do the talking for him. When you’ve recorded and played live with a twisted array of musical talent that includes Captain Beefheart, the Residents, Snakefinger, Pere Ubu, the Pixies, PJ Harvey and Polyphonic Spree, you don’t have to blow any hot air into your own balloon. Speaking from his San Francisco home, Feldman touched on the high points of a marvelous career like a flat stone skipping over the surface of a mountain lake. His latest project, kNIFE & fORK’s The Higher You Get The Rarer The Vegetation, is out now via Frank Black’s The Bureau label. Feldman will be also guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him.
Feldman: My wife, Colleen Browne, and I went on holiday last year to Morocco. She had been working a lot at her stressful job and wanted to have a real holiday, with swimming, sun and relaxation. Early in the year we were talking about going to Mexico or Hawaii. Then I went and played at a music festival in the south of France with kNIFE & fORK, met a singer from Ireland named Declan Debarra, who now lives in Los Angeles. He’s a great guy and has a fantastic voice that is strong, sweet and pure. One day he said aloud to no one in particular, “I have a flat in Essaouira, Morocco, that is vacant. If anyone wants to use it, it is just sitting there.” Well, this seemed more interesting to me than Hawaii or Mexico, so I pursued this opportunity. Colleen liked the idea as well, and a few months later we set out for Morocco. I think two days before we were to leave, it occurred to us we might need some immunizations for the trip. We did, and that was a scramble to get done. Then we bought a guidebook on the last day but left it on the plane. We did make it to our destination city after a few days in Marrakech. We arrived on the biggest holiday of the year. Each family would acquire a sheep and then spend a whole day slaughtering it and cooking it out in front of their habitat on what seemed to be box springs. They were all very happy and excited. Mostly our experience their centered around not being ripped off by the locals. I now think perhaps we should have gone to Hawaii.
Video after the jump.
