R.I.P Graham "Epidose" Marsh

Graham Marsh commited suicide the other day. Being one of my early musical heroes, it was more than a little difficult for me to take. I heard rumours that he had shut himself away and was playing a LOT of WOW. Apearntly he was was suffereing from a mental ilneses, losing his grip on reality and couldn't deal with it anymore.

Here is the letter I sent his brother.

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Hi David,

I was devastated when I learned of Graham's Death. Even though I have never met him, I feel like I know him in a unique way. I have an interesting story I always meant to tell Graham but I never had the chance.

When I was in grade 9 (~1998), I was passed a CD by an older student who knew I was interested in composition wanted me to hear electronic music. She briefly showed sketch and said she was working on a flyer for a show. She was to graduate a few weeks later and I never saw her again.

I didn't know who's music was but I loved it. For the next few years the "Mystery" CD would be a personal favorite. It inspired me to begin producing. I set to work reconstructing his music and figure out how it worked, the rhythms, the common patterns, production techniques etc. With nothing other than some un-released tracks and the memory of a sketch, I had little hope of figuring out who's music I so enjoyed.

A few years later I was accepted into the Composition faculty at the University of Manitoba specializing in electronic music. I walking through a record store and I saw an old poster on the wall close to the floor. The graphic style of the poster caught my eye. The character on the poster reminded me of the sketch I had seen 5 years earlier. I had a word to go on now... "Epidose"

From there, I managed to track down Graham's e-mail after a long Internet search. I briefly contacted him and he was happy to hear from me. He gave me some production advice and some of his newer stuff. He also gave me a bunch of the rough material he used in the creation of his older material.

For the last 2 years I've been playing his music on my show "Samplitude" on UMFM.

Now i'm heading off to do my Masters in Composition at McGill. I always wanted to thank Graham for inspiring me. A lot of my sucess grew out of the hard work in those early years trying to figure out his music. Meeting him in person was on my list of things to do before I moved to Montreal. His music was instrumental in my early development as a producer. His sense of "fun" and clever use of atmosphere will always stick with me.

As someone who has spent a fair amount of time thinking about aesthetics and analyzing music of all types, I can tell you Graham's work is very special. Even after 10 years, I'm still hearing new and interesting things on that first CD.

-Eliot Britton

Bush, Genus George W

After spending a good portion of last Tuesday on the lookout for an evil that would usher in the end of the world, some may think I was disappointed by a fairly unvengeful day. No angels or demons, floods or fire, meteors or holy wars... Just the Hollywood Remake of "The Omen". (Which I hear is bad, but not bad enough to trigger the last judgement)

But I DID find what I was looking for. Not in the form of a burning bush, but in an altogether more annoying and hateful kind of bush of the genus George W. In my view he represents the closest thing to a personification of evil I can imagine. Violence, arrogance, greed, ignorance, hatred and intolerance swirl around that guy like a Texas twister. But I refuse to give him credit for the mess he created. He is far to stupid. I think George is just another leaf trapped in the latest storm of people who are blinded by greed, ignorance and fear. They frantically search for anybody or anything that can justify their terrible deeds, hopeing to keep the fire burning for just a little longer. Just a few more billion, just a few more years. And so the scapegoats continue.

The Monsters and Demons of which I am so fond have always been the scapegoats for the evils of our world. Historical archetypes onto whom we dump our fear and weakness, these cosmological garbage men quietly take out the trash behind the scenes, bearing the weight of our sins, asking for little in return. A beautiful notion but it doesn’t work that way. We are responsible.


You won't find evil lurking in the shadows with wings and a pointy tail. "Evil comes from the hearts of men" and unless Bush and the NeoCons are stopped, we'll have hell to pay. And considering the current US dept of 8.3 trillion, the devil's due isn't cheap.

The Beast is yet to come!

05/06/06

As part of my daily morning routine I was hurriedly cramming my face with apples, toast, milk and chicken. I flipped my TV to the VISION network to get my daily dose of Christian insanity. Today was particularly fun because it was about how good the American army is and how God stands behind them and their "work" in Iraq. They also talked about how good the army experience is for all those 18 year old kids. If this wasn't enough, they began quoting scripture and using it to convince people not to question the police or the military. If I had a pen I would have taken down those verses.

I wonder if anything is going to happen on 06/06/06? I hear NeoCon mothers are inducing child birth because they don't want to give birth to the antichrist! :)

Last time we had a date this evil was the year of the London fires "1666"

If the Dies Irae isn't tomorrow, I don't know WHEN it's gonna get here! All those tv evangelists will be disappointed.