Reading Notes

9-11 Minute Read | Laptop or Tablet Recommended

Topics and Themes

From a digital mess to creative organization; Reminiscing about Americorps; Cleaning up old indie hip-hop beats.

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Let’s say you did something in the past you’re proud of. It could be music, art, or a particularly awesome business deal. Let’s also say that many years pass by since you even thought about it. Isn't it fun to think back and reminisce? For me, I’m not talking about mooning my boss (though I was quite pleased with myself for doing that), but I’m talking about what I created previously and never released.

I enjoy looking back like this, from time to time. It's incredibly ego-gratifying to listen to some of that music and think "Oh, I have definitely progressed from that place... what a dumbass I was." I also get curious to see if anything can be salvaged and therefore rereleased. Perhaps there's a diamond in-the-rough, hiding in the mess of craziness.

I used to have a difficult time finding these hidden gems in my archive. Organization for me was a little… scattered. That looked like a bunch of folders in different places on my computer, random hard drives, cluttered cloud backups. My desktop, for example, was cluttered with audio projects that were "important" enough so as to end up on my desktop, where they would (possibly, maybe) receive top priority. It got to the point where the stuff I worked on in the past seemed like it disappeared into a black hole. I didn't like the idea that I wouldn't ever be able to find the things I once enjoyed working on but just didn't finish.

Luckily, I had my chance in 2016 to completely overhaul my digital creative life. A close friend of mine showed me his system for organizing all the previous creative assets he had into three simple folders (Display, Project, Raw if you're curious). Every single thing I've done on a computer since time immemorial was dated and reorganized into one of these three folders according to year, month, and day. This included every song, photograph, FruityLoops or Ableton Live or Cubase project, terribly angsty poem, disgustingly stupid short story, or laughable YouTube video. My point: Everything was succinctly organized into an organized, searchable-by-date folder structure.

That project took about two months to complete (and six months to back up on the cloud). I breathed a big sigh of relief once it was all done. I had a moment of clarity when I realized that I now had the freedom to do just about anything I wanted to do with my entire musical and creative history because it was searchable.

From that moment on, I’ve often felt curious if anything from the past was salvagable. Grande Valley Auction Incident is a direct result of this interest in looking back. I have found tons of old indie folk and slowcore songs scattered throughout my archive system, and I've greatly enjoyed remastering and releasing the songs. Had I not organized my digital assets so thoroughly, Grande Valley Auction Incident would never have seen the light of day.

How I mooned my boss in front of everyone and get away with it

There have been other projects I've been passively interested in revisiting, including KidShy. KidShy was the moniker I used to create two dozen pseudo hip-hop beats from 2004 to 2005 when I was a volunteer for Americorps. Americorps, if you're unfamiliar, is/was a national service organization created by Bill Clinton in his first term of office. The program engaged younger persons into service that specifically helps local communities. In other words, it's like the peace corps but for America. I’m really not sure if Americorps has survived the funding freezes of 2025. If not, it’s a huge shame. The organization truly did (does?) great things for America.

Back to the story: I joined Americorps not long after that extreme punch to the face that led me to eventually pursue teaching full-time. The specific program I joined was dedicated to building trails and improving environmental stewardship in Austin. It was hosted at American Youthworks in South Austin and was nicknamed E-Corps, for Environmental Corps.

Americorps didn’t pay all the well. I mean, I agreed to volunteer for $42 a day. I honestly don't know how I ate that year, let alone pay rent. Plus, the work was extremely challenging: In all weather, we worked outside either chopping down ash-juniper (an invasive, water-hungry tree in the Hill country of Austin), or building trails.

I was placed on a team of about 10 other kids from all walks of life. Peter seemed more likely to be at a think tank than on the trail. Gretchen was a full-on hippie. Kat liked indie rock and was basically a hipster. Andre was a local Austinite who was doing his second year in Americorps and appreciated the medicinal qualities of THC. Wil was a writer who's evocative short stories still resonate with me to this day. KG was from the hood and was the guy we could all count on if shit hit the fan. JR was a fun loving guy who was perennially in love with dinosaurs and the outdoor world. Our crew leader, Jessica did her best to manage us... with varying degrees of success. At one point, I decided to make my displeasure of her leadership known by mooning her with my pimply, white ass in front of everyone. The thought of that moment still makes me chuckle.

[Sidenote: Mooning your boss will sharply remind you of the power you have. Since the program was paying me so little, and they were having such a hard time finding ”volunteers,” they had to be a little desperate to keep me, right? That’s how you can moon your boss and get away with it: Make sure your boss absolutely needs you before you drop trough and show them the backside of your birthday suit.]

The friends who spoke hip-hop…

KG and Andre loved music. They would pop beats on our van's stereo system every chance they got. Sometimes KG would begin to flow over the beats they put on. I got the idea to start making my own beats and seeing what happens. I showed one of these frankenstein-beats to KG, and he was all over it. He immediately started flowing over it. There's no better complement than when a big dude who looks nothing like you says, "your shit inspires me, man. You got more?" I began creating more and more beats in force.

At that time, the best moniker I came up with was KidShy, probably because I felt incredibly shy during that time (As time marched on, the association with Kimchi came naturally). During this period, some 24 hip-hop beats came out of me.

There was a sticking point however: The beats sounded terrible in the car. KG would pop them on in his beautiful boat of a car, complete with a massive sub in the trunk, and the beats sounded like a garbled mess. Sure, they’d sound fine in headphones, but in audio engineering parlance, the beats didn't translate. Truth-be-told, they would sound godawful in every single place except my own headphones. Uncool.

The process of engineering music to translate across the (literally) billions of different devices is called mastering. Mastering engineers are the unsung heroes of the recording industry. They take music that either sounds like garbage OR sounds like someone spent a hundred thousand dollars on it and finalize it into something that sounds acceptible on literally billions of devices. The music then has the best chance to "translate." During the KidShy/Americorps period of my life, I knew I couldn't possibly get these beats to translate well with my lack of experience, shitty equipment, and dearth of focus. Nor could I afford a mastering engineer to work on them because, well, remember the $42 a day?

In other words, the beats stayed hidden on my computer for 20 years. And I mean the word “hidden.” I forgot I even created them in the first place because, well, the archive was quite messy.

After recently releasing Slow Core Christmas, as well as Archive Volume Three by Grande Valley Auction Incident, I felt the time might be right to attempt the re-mastering of more music, and I found these archived hip-hop beats hanging around. The first question: What if? The second question: Is it possible to take these wimpy and loose-sounding hip hop beats and turn them into beats that slammed and potentially sound great in a car?

Mastering The Beats to Slam A Bit Harder

My first move was to understand how to actually master a hip-hop beat at all. Clearly, I had a lot to learn. I happened upon an otherworldly magical YouTube video on audio compression on the channel UBK by Kush Audio. He shows how the attack of a compressor can help shape the transient at the beginning of the sound, aka the "attack." The release can make the beats dense and distorted, or it could make them dance a little bit. I ended up employing Kush Audio's Novatron specifically:

Further, I explored the excellent plug-ins Bloom, Soothe2, and Spiff, all by Oeksound to create a deeper tone, reduce unwanted resonances, and beef up the hit of the drums.

After about six passes through each beat, I felt happy enough with them to get them ready for release. I was able to do them a little more justice than I would have been able 20 years ago. It feels good to bring that KidShy period of my life to a close.

Did I keep in touch with these old friends?

No. Sadly, I didn’t. I can only hope that everyone found their happiness. Of course, I've bumped into a couple of them over the years. I saw Gretchen at a grocery store and it was great to catch up. I also bumped into Kat. She couldn't wait to get away from the conversation. I heard from Wil here and there, and he even posted a couple of songs I produced for him.

Really, the pebble that started this whole Kidshy avalanche was Peter, the guy I thought better belonged in a think-tank. Peter reached out to me in the fall of 2024 to ask if I had any recollection of a beat he and I played guitar on. Peter, thanks for reminding me of KidShy. This is for you:

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Behind The Scenes Commentary: Kidshy, How To Moon Your Boss And Get Away With It