Since starting on classical guitar around 2000, Diego has become a multi-instrumentalist at heart, but specializes in keyboards and electronic instruments. A sometimes member of various At the Drive-in-adjacent El Paso-based bands, Diego fell out with the scene/sound and does his own things now. He’s worked as a staff writer for the zZounds Blog and a product specialist at zZounds for well over 10 years. If you ask Diego’s significant other, his true talent is cooking.
Comus – First Utterance
Allow myself to repeat myself. It’s nearing Halloween and maybe, the second time will be better than the first? Let’s ruminate a bit on October. Isn’t there something strangely dark and alluring about this month? In nature, we look forward to trees changing colors while the heat from the summer subsides to cool our muggy air. We look forward […]
The Musical Almanac: Japan’s City-Pop
The Musical Almanac is an ongoing series highlighting musical styles or genres from around the world. Today, we focus on this unique style from Japan: City-Pop. Sometimes the barrier of language can be so high as to render history muted. Most people now have the luxury of being able to decipher what exactly J-Pop is […]
Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance – One for the Road
For me, there are certain albums that are tied to certain vistas and experiences. Not too long ago, I had the pleasure of visiting the America’s largest railway museum in Union, Illinois. Nostalgic for a time when you could travel the world at a pace more conducive to reflection, I set my sights. For half the journey, […]
Get the Tone: The Berlin School of Electronic Music
They say the enemy of good art is the absence of limitations. We’ve heard this in the past, with artists like Tangerine Dream and Manuel Göttsching, who by necessity, used workarounds to real life technological limitations as ways to create their own brand of music. How? By taking simple techniques and applying it to the musical tools they […]
Gasolin’ – Gør Det Noget
Now without further introduction: The Danish Beatles…erhm what? I mean, with a little introduction here’s: The Boogie Beatles. The Boogie Beatles you say? Yes, exactly. That’s I meant to say. Why would one say that if such an idea doesn’t quite register without a bit of an introduction. Ok, here’s one: In 1971, young singer-songwriter […]
Roots Music: The Berlin School of Electronic Music – Part 2
Roots Music is an ongoing series where we attempt to trace the influence of certain music genres and instruments. In our previous post, we showed you the rise of the Berlin School of Electronic Music; now we’ll show you the role it would play in shaping Electronic Dance Music. If one would want to feel the history […]
Ikutaro Kakehashi and the Rise of the Rhythm Composer
Destination: Osaka, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. Roland Corporation Headquarters, 1977 We might not realize it, but the Roland company we know now is entirely different than the one it was shaping up to be in its early days. When Ikutaro Kakehashi, founder of Roland, started his first venture into musical instruments, it was indebted to his love for time. […]
New Gear Report: Dave Smith Instruments Tetra and Novation Launchpad Pro
— Dave Smith Tetra Desktop Synthesizer Dave Smith Instruments jokes that the Tetra is a sort of “mini Prophet.” Years ago, most people would say the idea of a device at this price coming close to recreating the Prophet’s unique polyphonic sound would be out of the question. The Mopho teased the idea of recreating the […]
