Talking about
NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell
with Eiliyas
How does anything start? Why would anyone want to create anything and what are the factors that contribute to the creative impulse. What makes anyone have a desire to express anything?
Me. I tend to sum it up(right now at least) in my mind as a known or unknown thing or a pressure. A constellation of stressors. A sentiment, a feeling. To say anything regardless of how reckless or unconventional it may seem is an acknowledgement that there is something to be said. Something to be expressed. Now whether it’s expressed in a direct manner or whether one uses that sentiment or that feeling to fuel other activity. Well that’s a part of it at least. When there is something in your experience that doesn’t particularly line up with your expectations or the way that you see things, or feel they should be. Something needs to be done and sometimes, will be done whether someone likes it or not.
When I look at NY77 it feels like the turbulence of that time period was the setting that created a time in which something needed to be addressed then and at that moment. Not waiting for lessons and not waiting for studios and not waiting for permission to plug into the street lamps not waiting for approval of whether this was an acceptable form of music, of expression. Not only that, but obviously wanting and needing money but knowing that you are part of this community that ends up being a reflection of knowing that something needs to be said, something needs to be expressed and that something needs to be done means much more.
Eiliyas is a Macon born, Atlanta bred, Berlin-based artist working with music, sound design, creative writing and conceptual art. He also is host and curator of Mixtape Menage, a platform for becoming familiar with cultural facilitators of the world through sound.
