Chroma Key

[?]

Well, Get Back in the Car was the only pre-GMH song he played at that show in Turkey in 2007 and he seems to be so critical of his past works anyway that it wouldn't surprise me...

[wasteland]

Well, Get Back in the Car was the only pre-GMH song he played at that show in Turkey in 2007 and he seems to be so critical of his past works anyway that it wouldn't surprise me...

Which is why we were discussing yesterday (or was it today already?) that we need to get in touch with him and get him in touch with the tastes of his fanbase with regard to his past works before he finally hits the stage again. 

It would be a deadly crime to keep dafr and ygn out!

[?]

Totally agreed - if he ever ends up touring, someone needs to tell him "listen Kev, we know you are the most unnostalgic person on earth, but some people have waited for 15 years to see you play certain songs live, so could you be kind and acknowledge them?"

Due to the fact that he has performed only one show, seeing KM live would be a special experience in itself, no matter what the setlist is, but he wrote lots of classic songs that people keep discovering as the years go by and it would be a shame if they were completely ignored.

[wasteland]

Yes, but as Milena said, we have first to made him aware in the most tactful way possible that he *has* a fanbase at all

[?]

True; maybe he thinks most of the FB likers are just random DT fans who haven't even heard any of his later stuff, except maybe some OSI?

EDIT: ...and that might actually be possible - I mean, what I said about the likers

[wasteland]

Well, it's undeniable that 99.9% of his fanbase comes from either DT or from Fates Warning through OSI or his collaboration within the band, but that doesn't mean that those people are casual about his solo works. I am a DT fan, but I'm not a "yeah, cool" fan of his solo project as I am with James's or JP's. I consider myself an active fan of him, indipendently of my others fandoms!

[?]

I just realized that you can't post anything on his timeline... I do remember seeing DT-related posts from some people there earlier, but maybe he didn't like that? The recent post where he asked about the recording equipment has also disappeared

[wasteland]

It could be. Well, it wouldn't be a very smar move if it was so.

[MoraWintersoul]

Well I kind of get it. Social media is very good for getting your info out there if you have a page, but not so much for the return information. So posts on timeline are kind of unnecessary? If he has a question for us, he'll ask it. Forums are better for putting that sort of opinion out there, if it's a good forum.

[?]

^Exactly. But at least there weren't any "KVENI MROER INDONESIA PLZ" posts, so I guess the casual fans have been smart enough to realize that he never plays live

[wasteland]

"KVENI MROER INDONESIA PLZ"

Sig'd.

[?]

Second time a quote from me appears in someone's sig!

[wasteland]

Soooo, I was googling some lines of a certain infamous CK song and I found a video and... now watch what happens!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8qgk5tXuUA

[MoraWintersoul]

I don't think he can be sure he's not crazy.

[wasteland]

I don't think he can be sure he's not crazy.

[MoraWintersoul]

 

[?]

The roles in the video are kind of reversed because the guy is eating a fucking dorito and the mouse tries to kill him.

[ZirconBlue]

Listening to On the Page and I thought I heard something in the first audio clip about being on acid. Anyone have the transcript for that clip?

I do not have access to my KM masterpost of quotes right now, but the sample is about tripping on acid... I think she says something like "and of course we were on acid, in Houston(orsomething), at a science fiction convention". You can a short sentence about it if you WaybackMachine your way to the Chroma Key site in '98 or something.

I'm pretty sure it's "And of course we were on acid, in a Hilton, at a science fiction convention."  Hilton, of course, being a hotel chain.

[MoraWintersoul]

Listening to On the Page and I thought I heard something in the first audio clip about being on acid. Anyone have the transcript for that clip?

I do not have access to my KM masterpost of quotes right now, but the sample is about tripping on acid... I think she says something like "and of course we were on acid, in Houston(orsomething), at a science fiction convention". You can a short sentence about it if you WaybackMachine your way to the Chroma Key site in '98 or something.

I'm pretty sure it's "And of course we were on acid, in a Hilton, at a science fiction convention."  Hilton, of course, being a hotel chain.

Yeah, I honestly don't know why I typed Houston, and when wasteland mentioned Houston in his next post, I looked at it all weirded out but didn't question it

/Milenabrain

[YngVai]

I wonder if he holds any sort of day job outside of music.  He seems so opposed to the self promotion thing that you really have to be a part of to keep going as a full time musician.  Sure, he does other things outside of Chroma Key and OSI, but his projects are so few and far between it makes me wonder how much time he spends on music.  It's not like he's spending a lot of (or any) time gigging, either. 

[?]

I find it unlikely that he has a full-time job. He may be doing some random work occasionally to get some extra income, but knowing his nomad tendencies it's obvious that he isn't the kind of person who would do the same thing for a long time. Kevin probably spends his time seeing different places, people, etc. and doing whatever he feels like doing.

The recent guest appearances also lead me to believe he's mostly, perhaps completely, dependent on music - I don't think he would do those if he wasn't in need of money. Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying he's doing guest appearances just to get some extra bucks, but his mindset is probably "well, there's nothing to lose, I could do this".

[Mebert78]

Rumor has it that KM was enrolled in a Florida university 1-2 years ago studying medicine.  That was said by a Turkish fan who had some ties to KM when he was there.  We know he WAS in Florida, because all of the Shine CDs were mailed from a Florida address two years ago.  These days, I have a feeling he's involved in some indian reservations or something of that that.  Last year, he posted a number of links and videos of Indian-related items, including a road trip he took to  a reservation in South Dakota, and if you look and what he's following on Twitter it's mostly indian stuff.  Unfortunately, no one who's conducted an interview with him has come out and asked what he does in all his down time.  We'd all love to know!

[?]

Cool, I hadn't heard about the university rumor! His recent fascination with Indians makes me think he may have connections to some Native Americans, although I have no idea whether he has spent time in the reservations since last summer. As you said, we'd love to know where he currently is and what he's been doing, but Kevin probably wouldn't tell us - maybe it's better that way?

[ColdFireYYZ]

When I ordered Shine last year he emailed me and told me that he put it in the mail. The return address was a PO box in either Indiana or Iowa (forgot which one, but I think it was Indiana). I'm assuming that that's where he lives.

[MoraWintersoul]

Knowing Kevin (not literally but you get the point), where he lived last year is probably no indication of where he lives in the present moment.

It would probably feel weird for outsiders to see we're interested in this subject, but when someone moves around a lot, it evokes my curiosity to know where they are, it's simple

Also I am obsessing over CK, prep'ing a huge post for this thread and last night I dreamed about somehow logging into a computer which holds dozens of ideas for future CK albums using the password threewaytragedy so my natural curiosity is enhanced by my love for all things Kevin

[wasteland]

I'm not sure if I have to be more concerned about your dream or about me immediately sample'ing along upon reading reading:

no indication

[MoraWintersoul]

I'm not sure if I have to be more concerned about your dream or about me immediately sample'ing along upon reading reading:

no indication

*itches to get back to the normal computer to play Lunar + Astronaut Down*

WORRIED SHMORRIED, we are infected with a lovely illness

[?]

I'm not sure if I have to be more concerned about your dream or about me immediately sample'ing along upon reading reading:

no indication

And

in the present moment.

[MoraWintersoul]

Anyway, 'scuse the HUUUUUUGE double post, but there was something that caught my attention a few weeks ago that I've just gotten around to writing about now. I was Wikrastinating and looking for non-writers who wrote interesting non-fiction (or at least I think I was, since 90% of my Wikrastinating revolves around music or writers that came out of the left field), and during the clicking of links that followed, I ran into the name of one neurologist Oliver Sacks, and I seemed to remember that name from an excerpt of a KevMo interview that dealt with the origin of Colorblind (the interviewer said there was a possibility that he didn't transcribe it right so I didn't bother looking up the name before). I went through all his books on Wiki and voila, in the entry of "An Anthropologist on Mars" I found this:

Essays:
"The Case of the Colorblind Painter" discusses an accomplished artist who is suddenly struck by cerebral achromatopsia or the inability to perceive color due to brain damage.

One search for "colorblind painter oliver sacks" and I ran into the entire essay that was the origin of Colorblind! Here's the link if you wanna read it in full: https://www.csh.rit.edu/~oguns/school/psychology/Articles/colorblindpainter.pdf

I took the liberty of taking excerpts from it and arranging them for your reading pleasure, and here's what I came up with:

TRIED TO READ THE SIMPLE WRITING BUT THE LETTERS CAME OUT WRONG

Early in March 1986 one of us received the following letter:
I am a rather successful artist just past 65 years of age. On January 2nd of this
year I was driving my car and was hit by a small truck on the passenger side of
my vehicle.
When visiting the emergency room of a local hospital, I was told I had a
concussion. While taking an eye examination, it was discovered that I was unable
to distinguish letters or colors. The letters appeared to be Greek letters. My vision
was such that everything appeared to me as viewing a black and white television
screen.
Within days, I could distinguish letters and my vision became that of an eagle—I
can see a worm wriggling a block away. The sharpness of focus is incredible.
BUT—I
AM
ABSOLUTELY
COLOR
BLIND.
I have visited ophthalmologists who know nothing about this colorblind business.
I have visited neurologists, to no avail. Under hypnosis I still can't distinguish
colors. I have been involved in all kinds of tests. You name it.
My brown dog is dark grey. Tomato juice is black. Color TV is a hodge-podge.
Etc., etc

Kevin: [...]Well, the lyrics are based on a story I read by, I can’t remember his name, Oliver Sacks (Note: this could quite possibly not be the author’s name... the fidelity of the tape kind of gives out as Kevin is mentioning the author’s name). Anyway it’s the true story of a guy, an artist, who gets into a car accident and loses the ability to see colour. So, he starts painting in black and white. So, yeah, it’s sort of based on that.

2112: As a musician, was that story able to affect you on an artistic level? Is that what spawned the lyrics?

Kevin: I don’t know if it affected me on an artistic level. It affected me on a human level, I think. It’s about an artist, I don’t know the name of the artist, that was supposedly known for his work with colour. That’s what his calling-card was.

Total colorblindness caused by brain damage, so-called acquired cerebral achromatopsia,
though described by Robert Boyle as much as three centuries ago, remains a rare, intriguing,
and important condition. It is important because (like all neural dissolutions and destructions) it
can reveal to us the mechanisms of neural construction, specifically how the brain constructs
color. Doubly intriguing is its occurrence in an artist, a painter in whose life color has been of
primary importance, and who can directly paint as well as describe what has befallen him, and
thus convey the full strangeness, distress, and reality of the condition.

When we first saw him, on April 13, 1986, Jonathan I. was a tall, gaunt man, showing obvious
recent weight loss. He spoke intelligently and well, both analytically and vividly, but in a soft
and rather lifeless voice. He rarely smiled; he was manifestly depressed. We got a sense of
inner pain, fear, and tension, held in with difficulty beneath his civilized discourse.
We learned that his accident had been accompanied by a transient amnesia. He had been able,
evidently, to give a clear account of himself and his accident to the police at the time it
happened, late on the afternoon of January 2. He then went to his studio to see someone
interested in his work but cut short this meeting because of a steadily mounting headache.
Arriving home, he complained to his wife of having a headache and feeling confused, but
made no mention of the accident. He then fell into a long, almost stuporous sleep. It was only
the next morning, when his wife saw the side of the car stove in, that she asked him what had
happened. When she got no clear answer ("I don't know. Maybe somebody backed into it")
she knew that something serious must have happened.
Mr. I. then drove off to his studio, and found on his desk a carbon copy of the police accident
report. He had had an accident, then, but somehow, bizarrely, had lost his memory of it.
Perhaps the report would jolt his memory. But lifting it up, he could make nothing of it. He
saw print of different sizes and types, all clearly in focus, but it looked like "Greek" or
"Hebrew" to him. A magnifying glass did not help; it simply became large "Greek" or "Hebrew." (This alexia, or inability to read, was still present five days later, but then apparently disappeared.)

Feeling now that he must have suffered a stroke or some sort of brain damage from the
accident, Jonathan I. phoned his doctor, who arranged for him to be seen and tested at a local
hospital. Although, as his original letter indicates, difficulties in distinguishing colors were
detected at this time, in addition to his gross alexia, he had no subjective sense of the alteration
of colors until the next day.

That day he decided to go to work again. It seemed to him as if he were driving in a fog, even
though he knew it to be a bright and sunny morning. Everything seemed misty, bleached,
grayish, indistinct. His bewilderment and fear now became a feeling of horror. He was flagged
down by the police close to his studio: he had gone through two red lights, they said. Did he
realize this? No, he said, he was not aware of having passed through any lights. They asked
him to get out of the car. Finding him sober, but apparently bewildered and ill, they gave him a
ticket and advised him to seek medical advice.

Mr. I. arrived at his studio with relief, expecting that the horrible mist would be gone, that
everything would be clear again. But as soon as he entered, he found his entire studio, which
was hung with brilliantly colored paintings (see illustration of his pre-accident work on page
33), now utterly gray and void of color. His canvases, the abstract color paintings he was
known for, all were grayish or black and white, unintelligible. Now to horror there was added
despair: even his art was without meaning, and he could no longer imagine how to go on.

MAYBE I'M PARANOID, YEAH THAT'S MY PROBLEM
YOU ALMOST HAVE TO BE WHEN YOU LOOK LIKE ME

Mr. I. could hardly bear the changed appearances of people ("like animated gray statues") any
more than he could bear his own changed appearance in the mirror: he shunned social
intercourse and found sexual intercourse impossible. He saw people's flesh, his wife's flesh, his
own flesh, as an abhorrent gray; "flesh-colored" now appeared "rat-colored" to him. This was
so even when he closed his eyes, for his preternaturally vivid ("eidetic") visual imagery was
preserved but now without color, and forced on him images, forced him to "see" but see
internally with the wrongness of his achromatopsia. He found foods disgusting in their grayish,
dead appearance and had to close his eyes to eat. But this did not help very much, for the
mental image of a tomato was as black as its appearance.

PANTONE MEMORY, GRAYSCALE EYES

MUST BE 290 BLUE ON THE WATER
IT'S GRAY TO ME, 3 CV IS ALL I SEE

He knew the colors of everything, with an extraordinary exactness (he could give not only the
names but the "numbers" of colors as these were listed in a Pantone chart of hues he had used
for many years). He could describe the green of Van Gogh's billiard table in this way with
exactitude. He knew all the colors, but could no longer see them, either when he looked or in
his mind's eye, his imagination or memory.

GIVE ME BACK MY BLUE, OTHER COLORS FADE ANYWAY

In some sense, it seemed, he was "seeing" the blue, at least seeing something about it, although (to use the current word) he could not, apparently, "process" this internally to create the cerebral or mental construct of "color."

We first asked Jonathan I. about a shelf of notebooks—blue, red, and black—by the desk.
He instantly picked out the blue ones (a bright medium blue to normal eyes)—"they're pale"

The blue jays were brilliant no longer; their
blue, curiously, was now seen as pale gray. This odd pallor replaced even the most intense
blues. He could no longer see the clouds in the sky, their whiteness, or off-whiteness as he saw
them, being scarcely distinguishable from the azure, which was bleached, for him, to a pale
gray.

TOO MUCH RED WILL GO RIGHT TO YOUR HEAD

This was seeing the sunrise one morning, the blazing reds all turned into black:
"The sun rose like a bomb, like some enormous nuclear explosion," he said later. "Had anyone
seen a sunrise like this before?"

the red and the black were indistinguishable—both, for him, were "dead black."

Presented with a magazine photograph containing a complex, predominantly red, multiple
exposure, showing dozens of figures — some red-lit, some white-lit—he missed all the red-lit
figures and faces, and saw only darkness with occasional hands and half-faces

WHERE'D ALL THE COLOR GO ON MY RADIO

Music, curiously, was impaired for him too, because he had previously (like Scriabin and
others) had an extremely intense synesthesia, so that different tones had immediately been
translated into color, and he experienced all music simultaneously as a rich tumult of inner
colors. With the loss of his ability to generate colors, he lost this ability as well—his internal
"color-organ" was out of action, and now he heard music with no visual accompaniment; this,
for him, was music with its essential chromatic counterpart missing, music now radically
impoverished.

GREEN CAN ONLY HOLD YOU IN THE GARDEN

The intense sorrow that was so characteristic at first, as he sat for hours before his (to him) black lawn, desperately trying to
perceive or imagine it as green, has disappeared [...]

ON A BEACH 20 YARDS FROM THE ROADSIDE
BACK AGAIN, 6 AM, FAR FROM SLEEP

In the past few months Mr. I. has been changing his habits and behavior—"becoming a
night-person," in his own words. He has taken to roving about a great deal, exploring other
cities, other places, but only at night. He drives, at random, to Boston, Baltimore, or small
towns and villages, arriving at dusk, and then wandering about the streets for half the night,
occasionally talking to a fellow walker, occasionally going into little diners: "Everything in
diners is different at night, at least if it has windows. The darkness comes into the place, and
no amount of light can change it. They are transformed into night places. I love the nighttime,"
Mr. I. says. "I often wonder about people who work at night. They never see the sunlight.
They prefer it.... It's a different world: there's a lot of space—you're not hemmed in by streets,
by people.... It's a whole new world. Gradually I am becoming a night person. At one time I
felt kindly toward color, very happy about it. In the beginning, I felt very bad, losing it. Now I
don't even know it exists—it's not even a phantom." (Mr. I. never had "phantom" colors, as
amputees may have phantom limbs, and the deafened "phantasmal" voices and music; for the
cerebral cortex is needed even to make a phantom.)
Mr. I., when he is not traveling, gets up earlier and earlier, to work in the night, to relish the
night. He feels that in the night world (as he calls it) he is the equal, or the superior, of
"normal" people: "I feel better because I know then that I'm not a freak...and I have developed
acute night vision, it's amazing what I see—I can read license plates at night from four blocks
away. You couldn't see it from a block away." [...]

Richard Gregory, speaking of those who have never had color vision (owing to absence of
cones, or normal cone function, in their eyes) said, "They live in a scotopic world, in a world
of bright moonlight," and this now seems to be the only world that Mr. I. can bear. Our
world—our "photopic" world, dazzlingly bright and colored—must appear discordant and
painful to an achromatope (whether he has been born colorblind, like Gregory's subjects, or
become colorblind, like Mr. I.); given this, along with an enhanced, compensatory sensitivity
to the nocturnal and scotopic, it is not surprising, it is perhaps inevitable, that achromatopes
should be drawn to the only world in which they feel at ease and at home—and that they
should, like the loris and the potto, the big-eyed primates that only emerge and hunt at night,
turn wholly, or as much as they can, to becoming night creatures in a night world.

[?]

Wow, awesome find!

"He saw people's flesh, his wife's flesh, his own flesh" also makes me think of the "X-ray eyes" bit in the final chorus.

[wasteland]

I literaly have no words. Thank you.

[ColdFireYYZ]

Wow, cool find! Coincidentally, I'm in the middle of reading Oliver Sack's book Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain! I was actually going to look into reading more of his stuff, so I guess I'll go with The Anthropologist on Mars next!

[TioJorge]

I literaly have no words. Thank you.

[MoraWintersoul]

It is from '95, forgot to mention that.

When you strip the story down, one of the elements you can find is that of the artist who suddenly finds himself in a requirement to express himself in a fundamentally different way and to function differently. So that is thread common with the inception of Chroma Key.

Also, I am now completely positive that Watercolor and Chromakey-the-song have their origin in similar stories of people who have extraordinary abilities/disabilities and their unusual consequences - Watercolor being perhaps tied to synestesia ("sounds like watercolor"), some sort of a disfunctional memory and disconnection of the sense of space ("cellar door leads to the attic", "and I can't recall a single word I said"), and also some unusual ties to morning, the "sunny side", the world of video/movies and the sense of sound late at night, being "drowned by it", but also being willing to let it go on - "anything TO drown me". "it's not like I can't stop, pull back the playback in my head". Chromakey has a similar theme, all tied to the visual sense of memories, as far as I could remember, but also having it messed up, not knowing what happened and being confused.

[?]

For those who didn't know yet, the sample in When You Drive was taken from this audiobook: "The Present Moment: A Retreat on the Practice of Mindfulness" by Thich Nhat Hanh

What puzzles me is that the publication date listed is November 2003, but this version may be a reissue. Besides, I remember Kevin said he heard the recording on the radio.