For me, the tabletop is an easy way to eliminate the possibilities of chords, modes, melodies, and harmonies. It kind of confines you to this other sound sphere. I know anyone facing this kind of dilemma could always just find another instrument more suitable to their needs, such as a sampler or synthesizer, but I figured I have a guitar and amp so why not just use them?

I only use the computer for editing. I don't have an eight-track, otherwise I probably never would have bought a computer. When I first got my Mac, I was exploring its possibilities and had fun with all of the sound hacking software, but I'm not interested in that approach. I toyed with the idea of releasing a 12-inch of all the stuff I did early on but good sense prevented me from doing so.

My setup for a live performance lately has been just guitar and synthesizer. Sometimes I only bring one. The guitar is in pretty bad shape and isn't sounding the same. Most of the time my live approach has been pretty different from recording.

My day job finds me in a double-bind often, and it's an ideal position for anyone interested in becoming highly reactive.

A lot of the projects I've allowed myself to get involved with over the past few years have made me a bit unfocused. It's just so ridiculously easy to do things here; if you're part of the scene, in five minutes you can wind up with two gigs within three days of each other. There's too much going on here and that's a bad thing, to me. Unless you want to jam, and then it's good.

From the time I wake up until the time I go to bed, music is unfortunately on my mind, on my stereo, or I'm making it or talking about it.

For instance, we have the largest Polish population of any city except for Warsaw, and the largest Lithuanian population outside Lithuania. More Italians, Greeks, Irish, Latinos, Serbians, and Croatians than you can shake a stick at. Chicago has it all, I don't know why I'd ever leave.