Happy Holidays 2025
Back at the beginning of 2024 I said I was going to slow the pace of posting a little and spend more time on music. Well, it’s been over 20 months without a post here on Hyperjabber so I guess the pace definitely slowed a bit.
That said, I have been focusing more on music, which was why I wanted to slow the pace. Since then, I’ve been DJing quite a bit. I have a monthly night at Falling Sky where I play funk, disco, house, and whatever else catches my ear. I’ve also recently started posting weekly sets on Mixcloud under the name Cult of Funk, and I’ve been publishing the tracklists and notes for those mixes here on Substack. It’s all pretty low-key and done for fun, but I love the music and it’s been a great way to get a bunch of friends together.
It also takes a shit ton of time.
Music, fiction, and games. Outside of work, these are my primary hobbies (by games I mostly mean roleplaying games like D&D). Finding time to indulge all my interests is a huge challenge. Plus, I don’t want to spend less time with family, so prioritization is essential, and my prioritization here is based on what I enjoy more. The answer has become pretty clear. Of the three, I enjoy music the most.
This realization surprised me. I expected fiction to be the winner, but looking back over my life, it seems obvious that music sits deeper in my soul. For a while, as a young child, I was embarrassed by my love of music. I remember neighborhood kids making fun of me when I tapped my foot and nodded my head to music. What a strange thing to ridicule someone for. But I also remember my sister and step-brother and I putting on a house concert for our parents around that same time. We pretended to play the instruments and sing to the album Band on the Run by Wings. I wonder if my sister remembers that?
Those memories are earlier than any story or fiction related memories. In 1977, when I first saw Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, one of the first things I did after seeing the movies was to buy the soundtracks. Those movies kicked off my love for story and speculation, and ever since then music and fiction have both been constant companions in my life. This is also around the time I discovered D&D, first the Basic Set and then the Advanced books a few years later, but that’s a story for another time (though if you’re interested in what I’m doing in that area, check out Worlds Enough where I’ve started posting game-related material).
Another factor that helped music come out on top is that I find music more intrinsically rewarding than fiction. The activity of “doing music” is more fun for me than the activity of writing fiction. Even with DJing (as opposed to playing an instrument or composing music), there are enough technical challenges to keep things interesting while also letting me immerse myself in a beautiful world of sound.
A big part of what makes music so rewarding is that it’s much more social than writing fiction. I work remotely, so my day-to-day interactions with folks is limited and confined to Zoom and Slack. I’m not looking for ways to be more isolated. In the evenings, I DJ here at home for an audience of just myself and Stephanie. The music fills the house (it truly is house music) and I feel like it’s a way for us to be more together even when we’re doing our own things. And then there’s the whole aspect of playing out for other people where I feel like I’m helping to create an atmosphere of good vibes and happiness. Music, I think, brings people together much more than fiction, and that means a lot to me right now.
In that spirit, I’ve put together a mix for your holiday listening. It’s a jazzy house affair, perfect for background music during your holiday festivities (especially when you need a break from the ubiquitous barrage of Christmas music). I talk more about the mix itself in the mix notes. I hope the music brings you happiness and cheer for you and yours over the holidays. If you enjoy it, please subscribe either on Mixcloud or to the liner notes on Substack so you’ll be notified whenever I release a new mix (usually on Fridays, but this week is special).
I hope you all have a great holiday season!