We're diving into the vibrant world of the Pittsburgh Fringe Festival, and let me tell ya, it’s a blast! I’m your host, Chris Lindstrom, and I’m super pumped to chat with local poet and rapper tamping, who’s got a show lined up called *Against Further Compressions* at the Attack Theater Studios. Fringe, folks, is all about breaking boundaries, and this festival, running from March 19th to 28th, does just that—showing off everything from the wacky to the wonderful. We’re talking tickets that won’t break the bank, capping at $20 and a full event pass for just $150—so no excuses for missing out! Plus, we’ll get into some fun gear talk about the SP404, a nifty little music production tool that’s like if your calculator decided to become a DJ—seriously, it’s all knobs and buttons, and we’re here for it! So grab your tickets at pittsburghfringe.org and let’s hit the ground running!

Mentioned in this episode:

Nights and Weekends

Check out Nights and Weekends on Lunchador! https://feeds.captivate.fm/nightsandweekends/

Common Thread

Check out Common Thread on Lunchador! https://feeds.captivate.fm/common-threads-hardcore/

Connections with Evan Dawson

Connections with Evan Dawson - Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

Connections

Joe Bean Roasters

Joe Bean Coffee - Coffee that lifts everyone. Use promo code Lunchador for 15% off your order! https://shop.joebeanroasters.com

Well, that music means it's time for another episode of Just can't not.

I'm your host, Chris Lindstrom, and this is part of our preview for the Pittsburgh Fringe Festival.

I know it's outside of our typical Rochester and surrounding area content, but the Fringe is universal, and we're thrilled to partner with the Pittsburgh team for their 13th year running from March 19th to the 28th.

To learn more about all the shows and get Tickets, go to pittsburghfringe.org Tickets cap out at $20, and the entire event pass is only $150.

So make sure to get your tickets today and join the action over on Penn Ave. And I'm here with a guest.

Guest, why don't you introduce yourself?

Howdy.

I'm tamping.

I'm a local poet, SP404 Smith, maybe rapper.

But that's for.

That's for other people to decide.

And your show is called Against Further Compressions, which is being held over at the Attack Theater Studios Main Studio on March 23rd at 7pm Tickets are $10 on Pittsburgh fringe.org so why don't you tell me about.

Tell me about this whole thing.

Tell me about the SP404, because you mentioned it right at the top.

So tell me what that is and then we'll dive in.

Sure.

So I've got it here in front of me.

Yeah, it's a. I don't know.

It's kind of.

If you took a TI84 and it kind of looks like one, too, and you injected it with creatine, whimsy, and delight.

Because, you know, like, I don't know.

I don't know if you did this in high school, but you would.

You could, like, run Doom like the video game on a calculator.

It was that simple.

So this is like that, but for.

For music.

And so there's 16 pads, and you can put 16 files on each pad.

And then at its most basic level, it's like, oh, I'll put on an instrumental and I'll hit play and it'll go.

But then you can also loop things, sample things, apply any myriad of effects.

So it lets you take music production, which can sometimes today feel kind of detached, and point and click.

And instead now it's all knobs and buttons again.

I'm a big knobs and buttons guy.

Yeah, well, and I think there's also something pretty special about a device.

And just looking it up now, you know, made by, you know, one of the originators of, you know, synthesized music, Rowan Co. From back, you know, in the 60s and 70s, you know, they were the name when it came to doing so many of these things.

What, what about this kind of creation and music and using a tool, you know, seemingly that seems like it's been around for a hot minute.

Obviously they're still making them, you can still buy them.

But what about this tool?

Kind of appeal to you from a.

This method of creating versus using logic or using something else?

Yeah, I need, I need less.

Yeah.

And this, there's a lot of limitations that come with this.

But it's also, I suspect the rest of the time that I am making music, I could spend all that time to figure out this one machine and I wouldn't get close.

It's nice that if I'm, you know, if I'm loading up samples or things I want to work with, I can't keep browsing on a sample library or da da da.

It's like you put in an SD card and whatever's on the card is what you have to work with.

And I find it preserves the excitement also.

Just, you know, that's a fun ideological answer.

I was also just going to shows, seeing people do wild stuff with their instrumentals live, and I was like, well, what are they using?

They were all using SB404s.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

And they were using.

We're getting techy here.

They were using like the first model, this is the second model, the Mark 2.

So it's.

They just figured out some of the kinks and bugs.

But no, I just, I saw other people do it and I went, oh, this is the tool for making this kind of music.

So how would you define the kind of music that you do make?

You know, what is what, what would you say?

Does it have a genre or how would you define it?

Yeah, I'd love to say like little weirdo, indie, hip hop, maybe rap.

I don't know.

I hesitate to call it rap because I'm, I'm a white guy.

Yeah.

I recognize that that would be taking up space that maybe isn't mine, but if other people see it and say that's what it is, awesome.

The way I'll pitch it to my friends when I want them to listen to it.

I'm like, oh, it's like Billy woods or Elucid or Cannibal Ox, but worse.

It's always a great descriptor to add in there.

Yeah.

And not like in a self deprecating way.

Just like, okay, these are the people operating at the highest level.

And I'm, you know, I'm playing.

I'm putzing about trying to find things and discover.

So this is.

That's who I look up to in that regard.

So how long have you been.

How long have you been, you know, trying to create this, you know, create music with either that tour, just in general.

I.

Well, I think I started the way a lot of people start.

I started as a drummer, so I just started hitting things like pots, pans, tools.

But then I started this in earnest, like, working, starting to figure out an idea of genre and lyrics and stuff like that in basements towards the end of high school.

And that kind of naturally went into the, you know, go to other people's house shows, open for other people's house shows and stuff like that.

Well, and I think there's something special about that, you know, music show on our network called Nights and Weekends.

They're talking about that whole DIY vibe and that these shows that would occur in basements and in houses were kind of that, you know, kind of that space for creativity, that space for people just to try things and do it just because you could.

And that's something I've seen a lot in the attitude around the fringe festivals as well.

Is that whole vibe very appealing to you?

Oh, yeah.

That's my home.

That's where I live.

And I find.

I had a friend who had a birthday party, and instead of asking for gifts, they were like, well, everybody's gonna do five minutes of something, and you signed up.

And it's just.

I don't know.

I think oftentimes the music has an audience just of whoever's in the room.

And if you're not looking for.

I want to be a commercial success.

I want to da da da da da.

It's like, no, I want people in a room, and I want to.

I want to hear what they've got, and I want to share what I've got.

And

I don't know, that grassroots stuff just.

It's nourishing in a way that a lot of stuff just isn't.

Yeah, and I think there's.

It does force a certain kind of connection.

I mean, when you're.

When you're performing something or just contributing through, you know, that.

That joy of trying to perform is, you know, it's revealing of yourself.

It's also being open to others, seeing that you're trying.

And there's.

There's something very special about trying that I've started to think a lot about is, you know, the element of not knowing if something's 100% going to work, but trying it anyways is one of the more important things you can do.

And sometimes you don't know where it's going to go until you just start doing it.

Yeah.

And then it lets us approach the notion of like, composition or performance as an act of discovery, as opposed to, all right, I've got my set list.

I go and I do the set list and that's it.

Where, you know, I was, I was doing a show, you know, a small little basement house show, and I hit the wrong button.

And, you know, it's.

People talk about this all the time.

It's like, oh, I hit the wrong button, I put on the wrong effect, and it did something I never would have thought to do on my own.

And then for the next, like, I got home from the show, went back to my room and was trying to figure out what I like reverse engineer what I did because it sounded so cool.

It ended up just being like a, a delay with a polyrhythm.

But, you know, it's nice to be surprised by yourself in the moment if you can recover.

Yeah.

And I think that's part of the thing is like, you're, you're also talking about the, you know, similar aspects that people experience with doing stand up comedy where your mind just might go in a different direction that night and you try it.

That's why everybody records themselves now.

So they can, so they can, you know, go back and pay attention and see, oh, how did I roll into that?

Why did that work so much better that night?

But that idea of, oh, I made a mistake, but it was delightful.

And maybe it's an aspect you use somewhere else.

Maybe you won't use it on that song, but, oh, maybe that's something you'll try in another thing and go in a wholly different direction.

Yeah.

And that's, you know, I think, you know, any conversation about music being made in America, we have to go back to jazz.

Um, and again, thinking about, it's like, okay, if we're stepping into this hip hop space, we're also stepping into the legacy of jazz as well and just improv.

And I, I, before I did all this, I was a jazz drummer and a lot of it was, okay, cool, you practice, you do your rudiments, filaments, da da da da.

And then in the moment, you are, you should forget everything.

You know, trust that the technique does exist.

But in the moment, just, you know, Buddhism, beginner's mind, don't think so greatly of yourself.

Well, and it's, it's so interesting because that's, you know, as, you know, a fundamental non musician.

I mean, I sang in high school and stuff like that.

But the, you know, when it comes to playing an instrument, that's not something I have really dove into.

But I found myself really delighted, you know, watching, you know, watching.

I think it's the YouTube channel Drumeo or they think they do all sorts of musical training stuff, but they'll have drummers who are hearing a song without a drum part and they'll go out and play it.

And one of them that I was always intrigued with was a guy who was a, you know, very high end jazz drummer and hadn't heard a lot of pop songs.

And he just, he went in and his technique and his process of breaking down what he was hearing and the prep and the work that goes into sometimes doing that was fascinating.

As somebody who loves process and loves that stuff, seeing somebody at the highest level use the same techniques to break down a genre that he doesn't listen to was just really cool.

But also sometimes jazz drumming has improvisational things.

How do you balance that, the planning versus improvisation and what you're doing now?

Well, a lot of it, it comes back to the machine.

It's like, all right, well, I've got instrumentals in here, I've got ideas of what I could do with effects and I've, you know, I know the lyrics, but oftentimes I'm responding to the room.

It was a show a while ago where I had a whole lineup where I was like, all right, it's higher energy stuff and maybe a little more grading.

And I got there and that was not the vibe at all.

It was cozy, people had tea.

That's usually not a recipe for grading harsh industrial style songs.

Yeah.

And then some of it too comes down to.

It's like, well, I initially made this song with another guy, so Temper the Steel is featured pretty heavily on the, the album that a lot of this material comes off of.

And he's not going to be here.

He's, he's down in Texas, but.

And I, it's, you know, it's a faux pas to perform someone else's bars.

So I leave space where it's like, all right.

And then in these 16 bars it's going to be improvised or if like I've got a rough theme of something I could walk into.

Yeah, just leaving space to respond to the place you're in and the, you know, the energy I'm picking up from the room.

So when you think about creating music, what, what are the kind of things that.

When you're working through that process does.

Where.

Where does your mind go?

Are you.

Are you purely thinking about the music?

Are you bringing in personal experiences to bring vibes and, you know, add to the lyrics?

How do you.

How do you go through that process?

How much of you goes into it?

Yeah, I think now we're getting into, like, the tamping Persona.

Like, I'm not showing you my face.

There's.

There are.

There's definitely some boundaries, but I find in the.

You know, and the same thing, when you have a poem and there's a speaker, it's a.

It's a license to say, well, this isn't me.

So I can say more than I would normally.

Yeah.

And, you know, personal experience, I think it's a.

Well, that you draw on naturally.

I'm usually.

I'm starting from sound, so it's usually instrumentals first, and then, okay, what language and what delight of language fits into this instrumental?

And it helps.

You know, I can bring personal experience into it, but it helps, too, to be like, all right, cool.

If I'm.

If I'm working through this material that's a little emotionally sensitive or raw, through metaphor, simile, and wordplay, we can create distance.

That's care for me.

And also just audience care.

Like, if, you know, Like, I think a lot of lyrics will be like,

well, if, you know.

You know, if we're talking about stale coffee in church basements, some people will pick that up, some people won't.

But the resonance is there regardless.

So.

Well, it's.

It's.

Right.

It's evoking, but for the right person, that is, you know, is a transportive moment.

Right.

For a certain time in their life or be having gone there at a certain time with somebody else.

Right.

Like, that is.

I do love those kind of things because it.

For the right person, you're gonna hit them in a very specific way.

And everybody else might just think, oh, that's a cool lyric.

Yeah.

I had.

I had someone come up to me after the show.

After.

After a show I did.

And they went, oh, I listened back to that one song you did.

And it's like, oh, why?

I didn't know you were talking about me in this line.

I name dropped somebody.

Or they're like, oh, you're talking about.

I talked about.

I have a.

My truck has a name.

I named my truck Hush Puppy.

Great.

It shows up a bunch.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's a.

It's gold, so it's natural.

But then he realized he's like he was going back through and identifying all the Hush Puppy bars.

And, you know, it's not like I'm creating this little Easter egg that someone has to pull apart.

And.

And then, you understand, it's like.

But what I'm primarily relying on is, well, the way the word hush puppy sounds and what that offers and evokes as opposed to.

And it's this perfect little thing for my life that a subset of people understand.

It's like, well, it sounded good, so it worked.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The reason I didn't.

I didn't.

You know, I identify with that right away is my wife has named both of our vehicles.

Her white.

Her white city van that she drives to furry conventions all over the country is called Scully for her love of the X Files.

And my car is, you know, a black electric vehicle.

So she calls it Shark E. So Shark Dash E, too, because I had one before she also named Shark E. So that is.

I resonate with all those.

Those little personifications in my life because they are basically everywhere I look in my house and everything else.

Yeah, It's.

It's.

I feel like it's good to.

To personify to humanize the vessel because.

Well, then I take better care of it.

Yeah.

And recognize how it's taken care of me.

Yeah.

So what I'm kind of intrigued is.

So how long have you been creating

music for under the tamping project?

Yeah.

Maybe nine years.

Okay.

Years.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

In that.

In that realm, is this something that, you know, do you have thoughts about it as a project that you want to get to a certain place, or is this just a practice you really enjoy?

How do you see the whole.

Both pursuit of music, but the pursuit of this project, the tamping project.

Yeah.

It's.

I think part of it comes down to the definition of the word tamping.

To fortify something through, like, a light series of blows.

And then.

And we kind of walk into the title of the album to fortify something against further compressions.

So, like, the English language being this fundamentally, like, there's a colonial aspect to it and just a violent aspect to any language.

And delineating, like saying, one thing's a pen and one thing is a. I have a hot wheel here.

So pen versus car, and separating them, it is a tiny little violence.

But then it's like, okay, then what do you do?

That.

If you are born wrapped in the butcher's apron, so to speak, what care.

What fortifications against other compressions can you do?

So that's kind of the High fluting answer.

The other answer is I really love the people around me that I've been making music with for almost 10 years.

And I, I make music so they can hear it and so I can hear their music.

I think it's community driven.

There's not necessarily a professional arc and I don't worry about like the artistic arc or anything until after the songs happen.

And then it's like, okay, what is organizing this?

But that, that all comes later.

Yeah, that's almost like the creation is separate from the end goal, which is.

It's kind of, it's kind of interesting to hear that and that you're really making it for, you know, for, for the people that are around you.

You also mentioned collaboration, something we've talked on a couple of our different art shows.

One behind the studio door, hosted by, you know, local artist who's done collaboration but has found it challenging at times because people have to be not just level set but like people have to know what they're bringing and how they're going to contribute to a project.

You mentioned somebody you've collaborated with and worked with.

Do you enjoy that process of working with somebody else, creating, or do you prefer it as a solo effort?

Oh, I love it.

Yeah.

When I've got someone good,

when I'm

on my game too.

It sucks to be a collaborator who's not pulling their weight.

But no, that other poet, rapper, Temper the Steel, he's just always in my head, always in my voice.

We've been together since high school and I think the thing that really helped me coalesce this into an album I was happy with is recognizing.

Okay, I'm not great at mixing and mastering.

I'm gonna need to bring in an engineer and ended up being someone from my D and D campaign who just awesome is.

Yeah, really sauced on the sticks.

We were able to collaborate.

Sometimes it's frustrating when I flake or I'm not available or when availability doesn't line up, but it's much better than what I could do on my own.

Well, and I, I think that's kind of special too.

Like, you know, the co founder of our network that we have here in Rochester, like he, he's more behind the scenes.

He likes being, he likes being in the basement, you know, doing, doing editing and you know, creating and helping, you know, helping people make their thing sound better.

And I tend to be more out front on those things.

But I got to say, having somebody know you is like for me is.

Was very odd thing where I don't have a lot of people that really know me or think about me.

It has to be interesting to work with somebody for so long and have them know you from all different times in your life and still be, you know, even though you're not, you know, next to each other physically.

That somebody knows you that deeply and knows you from creation of all of your pursuits to, you know, the version you were in high school.

Yeah.

It is helpful.

It keeps me honest.

Yeah.

But also, I don't think I'd be going without someone like that.

I think it would have very easily.

Just, oh, I'll just work.

I'll just pour all my energy to work.

I don't need to make art.

I don't need to make poems.

I don't need to make music.

But it's tied into the.

The friendship, the love there.

So, yeah, I'm very grateful for it.

I hold on to those people for dear life.

Yeah.

It's like you said, it's depending on the person you are.

You might have, you know, more or fewer of those deep relationships, but they're very special.

And sometimes you don't appreciate as much as you would like.

But it is a really.

It's a really cool thing when you get that.

Those moments of support when you need them.

What I am.

I guess I kind of want to end off with.

You mentioned a few.

You mentioned a few artists that you feel like you're hitting that same genre.

Do you have artists that are inspiring to you that you'd want to tell people about that are.

Either somebody might be somebody popular, might be somebody who's not.

What are the artists that really inspire you to create?

And it doesn't have to be music.

It could be any kind of artist.

Sure.

I'll start with music.

I think Billy woods, every time I come to his work, and one of his frequent collaborators, Elus, said, whenever I come to them, I come away ready to make.

And I'm inspired.

I'm just, you know, I'm nourished in a way that a lot of other stuff doesn't hit me.

But then at the more local or peer level, Temper the Steel, he's on.

He's on my album.

I'm on his album.

I produced and mixed his first parts of his first ep, which I hope he forgives me for.

Yeah, I mean, I was listening to it the other day.

I was like, all right.

It's not as bad as I remember it feeling.

It's actually kind of good.

Yeah.

I think outside of music, when it comes to poetry, Gerard Manley Hopkins, kind of this little weirdo Jesuit priest who was doing crazy stuff with meter.

He was gay, and he burned everything he'd written when he joined the Jesuit order.

Oh, wow.

But then his brothers in the Jesuit order said, no, you have a gift.

You have to write.

And there's stuff he does with diction, this idea of sprung diction that's really just insane.

And I kind of see a direct line from him to the meter of a lot of the dirty south rap like Project Pat.

I. I listen to Project Pat a lot.

I don't think I sound anything like him, but his.

His attention to meter and, like, occasionally he'll just do like, yeah, here's 72 syllabically perfect bars and no one notices.

But, yeah, I. I think there's something.

There's something special about that too, where you, you know, if you're paying close attention, you'll hear all that stuff.

But sometimes you just get entranced by.

By listening to somebody randomly.

My.

My wife and I were weird.

Saw that, like, you know, Gorillaz was on Saturday Night Live, and I'm like, wow, that is such a.

Such a weird thing.

Because when I first.

When I first heard them, my buddy in college was way more into, I'd say, more indie stuff or, like, not as popular.

And I heard, you know, one of the first songs, I'm like, oh, that's Delta Funky Homo Sapien.

I'm like, one.

There's no reason I would know that because, like, it wasn't my genre.

But I knew it because he had played me songs from another album like, oh, is that Dan the Automator who's producing that?

I know that style and, like, that's what got me into it.

Not because the guy from Blur was the main guy, but it was this, you know, oddball rapper who had this, you know, odd cadence and all of these big ideas.

Like, to me, that was very inspiring.

And it's.

It's great when you have those inspiration moments, and if you are a musician, you know, you use those things, and hopefully you want to create something that you think might be inspiring to somebody else.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That makes me.

Wasn't on snl, but I think it was on Letterman.

Future Islands.

I don't know if you've seen the Future Islands set on Letterman.

But the lead sing, it's just.

He was ridiculed for the way he performed and just put every ounce of himself into it.

But when I think of, like, what type of energy do I want to bring to the stage?

I go and watch that set.

I love that.

I think there's something.

There's something to that honesty, too, Right where you are trying and trying is.

Trying is awesome.

Like, it is.

It's hard to.

It's hard to overstate how important trying to do something is and not being worried and just going for it.

It's just.

It's a great thing to do.

Sure, I am cringe, but I am free.

You know what?

I think that's is.

It is an honest thing.

And I see why.

I see why, you know, the next generation feels that way because there's.

I'd say there is the cringy version of, you know, of optimism, of everything else.

But as somebody who has really struggled with positivity, being around people who are trying to create something has made my life so much better.

And helping other people create their thing through what I can do with the studio and everything else has made my life so tangibly better.

And seeing what positivity does to a city versus a city that's feeling negative.

As much as I do understand that artificial positivity, I think real positivity is so important.

And part of that positivity is like, yeah, I'm gonna try and maybe this is gonna work, and it's okay to succeed and it's okay to fail, and it's okay just to do it because you want to do it.

I don't know.

I've been working through it in my head the last few months because it's.

I'll mention I'm trying to be positive, but that's not the whole story.

It's that it has made my life better through other people being that around me and wanting to communicate that I don't have the full sentences and haven't distilled it down into this, like, little, you know, pithy comment you yet or pithy statement.

But there's something special about that whole.

Yeah, it's okay.

Just.

Just be positive sometimes without ignoring, you know, the downsides of the world and everything else going on.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's no joy without sorrow.

Yeah.

Well, I don't know.

I'm not sure how to end this one because we.

We've gone.

We've gone down so many different paths.

Sure.

I guess what I want to End off with is.

Are.

Are you happy with.

Are you happy with the music you're creating right now?

Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm happy with it.

I love it.

Makes me happy.

And then I.

Part of why I wanted to do the French show is I was doing, you know, these smaller house shows and stuff and like, man, you gotta do a bigger show.

Yeah, you need to get more people in here.

I said, okay, now we're doing it.

And I think that's something special about the Fringe too.

Is.

Is so fundamentally DIY and that you can.

If a venue thinks it's a good enough idea, they'll say yes.

And they said yes.

How cool is that?

That is so cool.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

Well, I guess the last thing I want you to do is throw out the plugs both for the show and if people want to follow you, we.

Wherever you prefer to be followed.

Sure.

I'm a bit of a Luddite, so there's not much social media you can.

I.

If you want to really follow me, go to Special Fish.

That's old school HTML Internet, but yeah, we're going to be at Attack Theater, 7pm March 23.

You can get tickets Pittsburgh Fringe.org I'd love to see you there.

It'd be great.

That's awesome.

So thank you so much for joining me.

If you're interested in checking out the other shows on the podcast network that I co founded here in Rochester called Lunchadore, you go to lunchadore.org we have lots of different shows.

Yes, there's some local content, but a lot of things are universal as well.

So hopefully check that out and enjoy it.

And we'll plan on seeing you out on Penn Ave. And I'll be down there for the second week.

Hopefully swing by and say hi.

See you next time.

This has been a presentation of the Lunchadore Podcast Network.

I am the master of the synthesizer.

And don't forget, don't forget, don't even try to touch a Korg, because you'll it up, you'll it up.

Don't even try to touch a Roland.

You'll it up, you'll it up.