“In 2006, on a whim, I decided to go uptown to Sam Ash music store, buy a Glockenspiel and record glockenspiel parts for the songs on Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run record that did not already feature that instrument. Most everything I have ever made has been ignited from a similar semi-destructive whim. A certain idea, most often against my better judgment, mixes with my slight OCD, and I can’t stop thinking about it until it is completed. Some people count their steps on the way to work…I do this.”
- Cory Arcangel speaking about accompanying Bruce Springsteen on glockenspiel
I adored him in the early 00’s if only for re-introducing me to the retro pure pleasure of default html design, but then I guess I got jealous that his stupid projects were so famous. But now I can love him again, and that is a weight off my psyche. Okay, the aging hipster schtick (which, for me, really just means he is over 30 and still uses rainbow gradients, pre-pube skater words like ‘awesome’, and outdated hip-hop words like ‘peepz’) is still annoying, but he seems generally a happy, open, giving non-hater, so I need to just relax and allow that random spastic renditions of video games you played 20 years ago and an obsessive dungeon and dragons approach to life is simply not hurting anyone; and, furthermore can often be amusing, funny, and occasionally a little bit sad:
I hadn’t seen that one before. It reminds me of the time I hacked my helper to death with a crowbar in Halo, except that there is hope as well as hopelessness captured in that poor lone invader’s moment.