There are two sides to any mechanical philosophical argument: the first being the pessimistic route normally taken by post-apocalyptic science fiction films (ala Terminator, Matrix, Robocop, et al) where we’re either going to be eliminated, enslaved, or ultimately become the machines we’re so fond of using on a daily basis.
The other side to the argument is that one of collaborative creation or goal achievement: that by working together people/groups/teams/elite super human crime fighting teams, can accomplish just about anything they set their minds to. This latter argument being the case-in-point behind the latest Stratasfear Productions project: The Indie Machine.
Now unlike other SFP endeavours, I’m not the lead on this one, and I wasn’t even the one to come up with the idea: the project had been on the go for months before I was brought on board. But now that I’m here, let’s just say I’m looking to take this machine from a wheel into a fully operational moon-like space station.
The Indie Machine is, first-and-foremost, a weekly radio show showcasing indie rock/pop/folk/electronic music operating out of the studios at the University of Toronto Scarborough’s Fusion Radio station. (that’s fusionradio.ca… as in click on that link.), run by my friend David Marskell.
After my relocation to Toronto last June, and subsequently going sans-lodging for some time at the end of the summer, one of my first (and longer-running jobs) in Toronto was working at a local pub up in the Annex area, at which David was a regular customer. We’d talked about his radio show every now and then, but once I made mention that I’d finished paying off the XL-1, David approached me about joining the project to put together indie band session videos with the artists he’d as-of-late been successful at bringing on the show for interviews.
Once we worked out the logistics of everything it was only a matter of working out a solid template system for weekly production and we were laughing.
Since that first episode (April 1), David and I have been brainstorming a plethora of new projects for The Indie Machine to undertake, including: live videos, hosted events, and an entirely new website which I am in the process of putting together as one of my numerous time-consuming side-projects.
Once I get the new website up-and-running I’ll be sure to put up a new post here about it. In the meantime though (ya know… since you’re here and all), check out the first few episodes of The Indie Machine Sessions:
UPDATE: I initially left this blog post unfinished in the hope that I could get the website redesign finished before posting it, but time constraints on other projects didn’t exactly permit that to come to pass. Thus it is posted now (May 23rd), even though it was started on April 10. Text tense and dates have been modified accordingly, as well as additional sessions episodes included until I get around to actually making an iM section here on SFP.
<3 Stephenson
