My 5 Favorite Things: FreQ Nasty
Los Angeles by way of Fiji, New Zealand and England beatmeister FreQ Nasty (a.k.a Darin McFadyen) recently teased us with "Bon Merde," a hot new track from his recent same-named EP. Mr. Nasty continues his winning ways with a new collaboration with prolific Brooklyn producer MartyParty called "Beethoven's Filth." We checked in with McFadyen about five of his favorite things.
1. The beach (preferably with sun and blue sky but not necessary). Growing up in New Zealand has left an indelible appreciation in my mind for the ocean and where it meets the land. I love scuba diving and exploring the sand dunes too, but it's the place where we first crawled out of the primordial frog doo doo that fascinates me. The way the tide comes in and out, constantly creating and destroying according to the dictates of a small ball of rock in the sky some 139,000 miles away. It's a place where all sorts of unconscious evolutionary urges mingle with the kind of fun that self selects for hot sunny days and good friends. And ice cream. It's hard not to think of it as home whether that be the sand or the ocean or the strip of neither that we call beach in between.
2. Bladerunner/Matrix films. It's hard to imagine two films that better encapsulated the possibilities of what we could face as we advance technologically, and the enforced spiritual evolution that the ethical dilemmas will force upon us. Separated by 17 years Blade Runner (1982) takes as its theme from the idea of what makes a conscious being worthy of value. Once we can replicate consciousness via technology, how are carbon and silicon based consciousness different in value? The Matrix does the same for reality. What makes reality "real" and once we can replicate reality through technology, how is a programmable virtual reality different from the supposedly non programmable reality we live in now? Both are good films for reality hackers to dive into and consider the appearance of the present moment and how, if we valued all consciousness equally, how different reality would appear to us.
3. My 1953 Gibson J185 acoustic guitar. I've had it for years now and playing it is the perfect antidote to to listening to music that sounds like robots retching for eight hours a day in the studio. It's battered and has had bits replaced and changed so it's far from collectors condition, but whenever I've taken it in to be repaired, even in the vintage guitar mecca of L.A., the repair dude has been very happy to see a guitar of this quality actually being played and not sitting in a temperature controlled vault somewhere. They'd probably be a lot less happy if they heard me play it, but somehow we never quite get to that part before I pack her into her case and wing her back to her place of pride in the studio.
4. Kombucha. It's easy to be come addicted to this stuff and for a while in the West side of L.A. it all went Black Market style as the FDA forced retailers to remove it from the shelves over alcohol level disputes. Hippies all over Venice and Santa Monica were swapping details on which local markets were flouting the ban and stocking the "good stuff." For a drink that's basically fermented mushroom juice in a bottle it's taken on mythical proportions to the health conscious hippie who can't live on green tea alone. But I love the fact that it comes in glass not plastic — a completely different drinking experience — and if you leave it in the sun for a day or two before you drink it you can bring up the alcohol level to oooh... about 0.025 percent. Which is about as hard as I get these days.
5. Time. Time to play my guitar, relax with friends, chill, meditate, read books, practice and teach, watch films, drink my Kombucha, go to the beach. Somehow I always put off the time when I'm actually going to do the things that I like to do other than the music related stuff. The best way I've found to make sure I have this time is to start off the day with some chill contemplation where I decide what the day should hold if I wasn't living the hectic 21st century life of a DJ/producer. What would really help me and those around me best? And then I follow that by running around for the rest of the day like a blue arsed fly watching my plans evaporate into the ether. I'm getting better with time in both senses, but paradoxically, unless I'm being aware of it moment to moment I end up chasing the past and the future around all day and get to the end of the day feeling like I did loads, but that I didn't actually experience any of it. Note to self: don't do that.
Download FreQ Nasty's Cheesy Strings Incident Mixtape for free right here!
