Monthly Residency: Dawn Golden and Rosy Cross (Week 1)

Oct 4, 2012 by PORTALS    6 Comments    Posted under: Features, Monthly Residency  

Monthly Residency is our new feature where we ask an artist/musician to write a journal piece for us each week. This month Dexter Tortoriello of Houses, also known individually for Dawn Golden and Rosy Cross, will be contributing a post for us every Thursday throughout October.

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This is my life right now (An unorganized list of things that have happened this month with varying degrees of explanation):

My cat helping me pack for Seattle.

[1]. Right Now – At this exact moment in time I am pretty sick from not taking care of myself last weekend while in Seattle playing Decibel Festival (more about that later). It’s my cats’ 2nd birthday (they are twins) today, and I forgot to buy them presents so I’m just letting them sleep all day without bothering them all the time like I normally do. Megan (my girlfriend and the other member of my other project Houses if you aren’t familiar), is just waking up. I’m listening to the new Flying Lotus album and wishing I liked the second half as much as the first. I’m wondering if I just grew out of the feeling of hearing a record and immediately knowing it’s going to be my favorite thing. Maybe I’m overexposed. Maybe it’s like that bell from the polar express or something. Maybe feelings just get less and less intense as you get older until you are just kind of happy that you aren’t dead yet.

Seattle

[2]. Decibel Festival – Probably the best festival I’ve played to date. Seattle is beautiful and everyone was nice to us and there were really great bands playing all over the place. We spent most of our time mulling about with Will from Baths, as he’s a long time friend and is super easy to hang out with for extended periods of time. He coaxed us into going to the Raster Noton showcase to see Emptyset—a band I’d never heard, but it turned out to be one of the most destroyingly powerful soul evaporating shows I’ve ever seen in my life. After that we spent most of the night talking about the set, Will did an interview where all he talked about was their set, and then we got introduced to Nosaj Thing and it was really late and we walked back to the hotel. The rest of the trip was spent walking around with the WEDIDIT dudes (Shlohmo, D33J, Groundislava) and laughing at how much black they all wear and how cool all of them really are.

Emptyset’s nihilistic visuals.

Also, we spent a lot of time with Maré Odomo, a really fantastic comic artist who does these hyper emotional Pokémon comics about Ash not having a dad (see below), and that was really great.

[3]. Pop Music – In Los Angeles, I have a studio at the Mad Decent headquarters, that I use on a pretty regular basis. The thing about it though is that it’s Diplo‘s studio and I only use it when he’s out of town. Anyways, he popped in while I was working a few weeks ago and asked me if I would hang out and work with him on some music for Riff Raff. I was a little nervous because I don’t know how to make real hip hop music, and also because I’d never spent any extended time with Riff Raff. I was half expecting him to be super mean to me because I’m not Diplo and I don’t have braids or do coke, but he turned out to be insanely cool and one of the most entertaining people I’ve ever encountered. We had a pretty lengthy conversation about Tecmo Bowl Football (the old NES game) that involved him recreating all of the best sounds of the game with his voice and it was almost identical. A few days later I got asked to write for the new Rihanna record, but I don’t know if I’m allowed to really talk about it or whatever. I will say that it was weird and a good learning experience and that I feel like I understand a lot more about the world on a purely superficial level.

Diplo/Riff Raff

[4]. That’s pretty much all I remember from this month that I am going to talk about at length. My parents were in town for a while and that was really cool, but I’m sure no one wants to read about us candidly watching Mark McGrath pick up a suit while I try and explain to my mom who Sugar Ray was without having to sing the song out loud because he might hear.

— Dexter Tortoriello

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4