Category: sound for silent film

Steve Roden changed my life. His music, paired intimately with that of his uncle Jeffrey Roden, detonated in my mind and soul in such a profound way that everything about the way I thought about art making—sound in particular—shifted forever. Their treatment of sounds, silence, space, and time inspired me in countless ways. My mature work, particularly my current long poem, would be impossible without them.

I first met Jeffrey and Steve at a concert in Los Angeles, called ‘A Day of Listening,’ I think, organized by Josh Russell for his bremsstrahlung label, an early home for what Steve called lowercase music. This may have been in 2000 or 2001. Also on the bill were Civyiu Kkliu and j.frede, I believe, but it was Steve and Jeffrey who knocked my socks off. I later invited them to appear on my radio show, Repeat After Me, on KUCI 88.9 FM in Irvine.

Steve eventually, graciously, agreed to serve on my committee for my MFA in Drawing and Painting in 2004. I curated Steve and Jeffrey into nearly every sound show I organized, including quiet., a house concert series in 2004, and more public festivals such as so.cal.sonic in 2005 and the Slow Sound Festival in 2009. Steve brought me in for a series of live scores to silent films at LACE (where I met Robert Crouch and Yann Novak) and Otis College (where I met Meg Linton).

For one particular gig, Steve invited me to join him in preparing a live soundtrack for a performance by Swiss artist Yann Marussich who reclined in a heated plexiglass box and sweated blue pigment through his pores. We later met in his garage in Pasadena and recorded an improvised follow-up that we released as a two-track EP, “water in the hollow eyes of the blue, finally,” on a now-defunct Russian Bandcamp label.

I last saw Steve at soundpedro 2017 for a concert and panel discussion I organized on sound in Los Angeles. When Jeffrey and Shelley Roden shared that Steve had been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, we tried to set up a visit, but it never worked out. I’m okay with that. I’ll remember Steve in his prime: kind, generous, funny, and sweet, and the most humble person I’ve ever known. If I ever faced an artistic hurdle or some kerfuffle in the sound/music scene(s), I would always ask myself, “what would Steve do?”

There is so much more to say about Steve and Jeffrey, but I’ll end for now with the signature line that Steve included in his emails:

easy – to know
that diamonds – are precious

good – to learn
that rubies – have depth

but more – to know
that pebbles – are miraculous

Josef albers