Counting with Kevin Blechdom

Kevin Blechdom is a matchmaker for unlikely aesthetic bedfellows, pairing academic computer composition with disarming pop melody and a healthy dose of banjo. In the Spring 2013 issue of Electronic Beats Magazine, she proved that even experimental musicians can go by the numbers. Take notes; there’ll be a quiz.

1 Memorable line in a film or a song:

“I need a pickle like this in bed with me every night.”
Andrea Feldman, who plays Jesse in Paul Morrissey’s Heat, says something like this while she’s jerking off this young guy through a hospital gown at the swimming pool while she’s talking to his brother. It’s not only what she says but how she says it that is so memorable.

2 decisions I regret:

– Doing things to make other people happy at the expense of my own happiness
– Doing things to make me happy at the expense of other people’s happiness

3 people that should collaborate (and why): 

– Ma Rainey
– Pythagoras
– André Vida

4 things I haven’t done yet: 

– Bestiality
– Gone to jail
– Gotten a tattoo
– Crack

5 things I used to believe:

– That other people could read my mind.
– That my imaginary friend was gonna tie me naked to a wooden plank and carry me across the street if I was bad.
– That getting drunk was fun.
– That I would never shave my armpits again.
– That I like music.

6 hours ago I was . . .

Drawing pictures of tape delays on a dry-erase board and explaining to college art students about how moving playback heads to different places on the tape equates to creating delay taps of different lengths of time.

7 albums, books and films that everyone should own:

– Conlon Nancarrow, Studies for Player Piano Box Set
– Dušan Makavejev, Sweet Movie
– Gregory Bateson, The Mind and Nature
– Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
– Terrence W. Deacon, The Symbolic Species
– Frank Henenlotter and R.A. the Rugged Man, Bad Biology (movie)
– Paul Morrissey, Heat

After 8 p.m. . . . 

I fell asleep watching really bad TV.

My 9 lives . . .

Will hopefully include a one where I get rich.

I wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole:

Religion. ˜

Published June 19, 2013.