4B — Thursday, January 29, 2015
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ARTIST
PROFILE
VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily
LSA junior Ian Perfitt performs as Neighbourhood!.
Ian Perfitt blends
creative and
analytical thinking
in his music
BY CAROLINE FILIPS
Daily Arts Writer
LSA junior Ian Perfitt is the
ideal convergence of the left-
brain/right-brain theory on per-
sonality — he has a palpable zeal
for music and thoughtful inten-
tions to maintain equilibrium
within all aspects of his life.
Though debated in terms of
its validity, the evidence behind
the postulate suggests people are
either predominantly right-or
left-brained thinkers. It attempts
to justify why some are more
creative, abstract thinkers (right-
brained), while others are more
logical and conceptually-minded
(left-brained). The theory poses a
reasonable explanation as to why
we are the way we are, or why
Perfitt enjoys the University’s
rigorous physics curriculum and
maintains a passion for music.
Theoretically, the convergence of
the two would be a well rounded
individual much like Perfitt.
As a physics major and musi-
cian, Perfitt maintains a balance
between the realm of explainable
scientific theories and the intan-
gible euphoria of the creative
process. In the spirit of his per-
sonal mantra to stay balanced,
Perfitt lives out his motto. When
asked which route he intends to
pursue
professionally,
Perfitt
declared his love of physics.
“I’m passionate about it, and it
will also pay the bills, hopefully,”
Perfitt said. “Music is my less
heady thing, and physics is my
heady thing, so I keep a balance
with that.”
Primarily the project of his
girlfriend, Music, Theater &
Dance senior Summer Krin-
sky, and his friend Sam Naples,
a SMTD senior, Perfitt dabbles
in drumming and vocals for the
band Caves. However, he ulti-
mately prefers to stay out of the
limelight of performing, and is
recording a solo album instead.
“I’ve done a lot of performing
in the past, and not to say that
I’ve been there, done that, but if
I don’t have to perform that’s fine
with me,” Perfitt said. “With my
solo stuff, I’m not very interested
in performing right now. When I
write songs, I’ll play them around
the house, that’s my performing.
I don’t need to make it a big deal
on a stage. For now, that’s just
me.”
Perfitt began his studies at the
University last semester after
transferring from Washtenaw
Community College, yet his love
of music began at an early age.
Perfitt believes his appreciation
for the craft runs in his blood, as
he grew up in a musically minded
family where all of his uncles are
musicians.
“One of my first memories
was dancing to Elvis Costello
records with my mom in the
house I grew up in,” Perfitt
said. “I took drum lessons
pretty early, my parents signed
me up for lessons at age four,
but I wasn’t old enough to focus
on it and understand what was
going on, so I didn’t start until
I was nine and got more serious
about it.”
By his junior year of high
school, Perfitt devoted the vast
majority of his time to recording.
He became serious about drum-
ming, branched out to other
instruments, added vocals to his
repertoire and also recorded an
album. But at times, Perfitt felt
out of balance.
“I wrote a lot of music, took
a lot of breaks,” Perfitt said.
“Sometimes you get exhausted
working on songs all the time.”
That balanced attitude that
permits
Perfitt’s
academic
interests to coexist with his
hobbies also extends to his
music. Spanning from “Babe
Has Got a Black Heart,” the
electronic jam influenced by
music of the ’50s and ’60s, to
the deeper lyrics and harmonic
structure of “Roots,” Perfitt’s
SoundCloud
showcases
his
impressive range.
He doesn’t subject his music
to one distinct genre, but rather
attempts to classify his tracks
by the differing moods and
emotions that inspired them.
“A lot of my music has deep,
intellectual things and then
some have some more shallow,
feel-good, upbeat elements to
them,” Perfitt said. “Usually it’s
things that I’m struggling with,
those are usually my deeper
songs, and then I’ll have songs
where my girlfriend will say
stuff to me that inspires a song
and there’s also just things that
I just enjoy writing about.”
When asked of his song-
writing process, Perfitt sim-
ply replied, “Write, record,
release,” exhibiting his left-
brained
pragmatism,
which
followed up with a refined,
right-brained explanation.
“Sometimes it just comes to
me,” he said. “It’s so fascinating
how you can sit down and come
up with this idea, and a lot of
times you don’t even know
where you get the idea from
and then to expand upon this
idea and create something that
moves people, moves yourself
and no one knows how or
why they’re moved. No one
understands. It’s so fascinating
to me.”
Once he runs with an idea,
he writes a song in full with
what he refers to as “scratch
lyrics, or lyrics that don’t make
any sense,” to fill the place of a
melody and structure an out-
line. He later returns to and
polishes up the lyrics and adds
the drums and acoustic instru-
ments, and lastly electronics.
Yet without sufficient inspi-
ration, Perfitt cannot begin his
creative venture. He mainly
seeks creative fuel from his
favorite artists and bands.
“My
biggest
influence
is
Baths,
an
electronic
musician with a unique style,
but sometimes I think his
songwriting could be better, so I
tap into people like the Beatles,
who I think write great songs
that inspire me to write songs,
but then sometimes I feel like
their lyrics are too shallow,”
Perfitt said. “So, I like people
like Bob Dylan and his style of
lyricism. Sometimes I feel like
all of that is not harmonically
deep enough so I like Nick
Drake a lot.”
He also accredits his artistic
drive to his many, insightful
conversations with the muse of
his work, his girlfriend.
“I’ve written about just being
with my girlfriend because
that’s so important to me,”
Perfitt said.
He hinted that his song,
“Today,” was written about their
time spent together, stating it’s
about two fictional characters
contentedly passing time and
sitting on the beach.
Though an admirer of music’s
legends and the newcomers
alike, Perfitt is mindful of possi-
ble accusations of imitation, and
in turn strives for absolute origi-
nality in his musical endeavors.
“I have a couple songs that
sound like Beatles songs, but
then I try to make them not
sound as much like Beatles
songs,” Perfitt said. “I would
never want to write a song that
sounds like Paul (McCartney) or
someone wrote it. I think that
everyone has their own expres-
sion, so they should try to tap
into that, however you do that.
I’ll think, ‘Where did my most
original thought come from, and
how can I keep them coming?’ ”
An enthusiast of the wisdom
that follows from making mistakes,
Perfitt recognizes the importance
of trial and error in his songwrit-
ing that leads him towards person-
al growth in the craft.
“It’s important to tell myself,
‘Oh, that’s just an OK song, I’m
not going to put that out, because
I know something better will
come,’ and once that better
thing comes, you end up releas-
ing something better,” he said.
“Learning how to skip things
that are just ‘OK’ is better for
you, because then you produce
something better. I’ve become a
lot more picky with things and I
think that’s important.”
Aside from his interests in
physics and music, Perfitt also
satisfies his creative desires with
drawing. His favorite form of the
craft is abstract expressionism,
due to its open interpretation
and lack of convention.
“I got into the whole drawing
phase of my life and I remember
making a lot of abstract draw-
ings,” Perfitt said. “I emailed a
UM art professor and I wanted
to show him my work and see if
he could teach me some stuff.
I brought my work to him in a
coffee shop and he just kind of
flipped through my stuff and I
don’t think he really liked it that
much at all.”
Though criticized for his
own perception of art, Perfitt
concluded that the meeting
with the professor was pivotal
in both his personal and artistic
development.
“At the time, I didn’t really
have a full realized idea of what
my art was meaning, but after
that, I learned that I wanted
to start figuring out drawing
things that have meaning, or
putting more meaning into my
art, whether its music or draw-
ing,” Perfitt said. “I also real-
ized that I didn’t necessarily
need to listen to him because
we just had different styles.
He was an art professor, so he
probably knew a lot more than
me, but I remember at that same
coffee shop he pulled out one
of his drawings, and it was just
a drawing of a cat. I thought it
was cool, just not the only way
to make art.”
When I felt our interview was
nearing its end, I asked Perfitt
if he had anything else to add.
His response was, yet again, an
example of his stimulating intel-
lect and commendable creativ-
ity.
Perfitt began describing the
math term of neighbourhood,
which inspired his SoundCloud
name, albeit minus the ‘u’ and
plus an exclamation point; and
like any outstanding mathema-
tician, he applied the term to
everyday life … and then some.
“It’s a set of points that are a
certain distance from a given
point It’s used for calculating
limits,” Perfitt said. “At that time
I was thinking about how a lot of
structures we have of reality and
theories of science are similar to
a neighbourhood in that they’re
a set of ideas that are a certain
distance from what things in
reality actually are.”
The
dual
connotation
of
neighborhood,
that
being
a community of family and
friends, was also related to
Perfitt’s title choice.
“Whenever I’m having trou-
ble or in a bad place, not the
happiest, whatever, I have this
neighborhood
community
of
friends and family to fall back on
and they can help me cheer up,”
Perfitt said. “The factorial sign
at the end of ‘Neighborhood!’
came up from a conversation I
was having with my girlfriend
about taking a series of experi-
ences that you’ve had and taking
that factorial that adds them up
and shows all the different com-
binations they could occur in.”
For now, those wishing to
hear the sequence of events that
led to Neighborhood! can lis-
ten to Perfitt’s SoundCloud of
demos. He is also planning to
release the demo, “Kiss and Cry
Benches”, and one finalized,
mastered demo of “Today.”
LITERARY COLUMN
When authors are
assholes
“It is easier to forgive an
enemy than to forgive a friend.”
–William Blake
You can say that again, Will.
A column of mine that ran
on
Nov.
11,
2014
entitled
“Finally,
A
Series
of
Very
Fortunate
Events,”
revolved
around my
enthusi-
asm for the
upcoming television adaption of
Daniel Handler’s, aka Lemony
Snicket’s A Series of Unfortu-
nate Events, and included my
praise for Handler’s unique
writing style.
A few days later on Nov. 19
at the annual National Book
Awards, Handler made a rac-
ist joke after African-American
author Jacqueline Woodson won
an award for her novel “Brown
Girl Dreaming.”
Handler subsequently apolo-
gized via Twitter and matched
donations to “We Need Diverse
Books,” an organization dedi-
cated to addressing the lack of
diversity within children’s lit-
erature. However, many people,
myself included, were still left
with a bad taste in our mouths.
While I won’t retract my
praise for Handler’s writing
ability, I admit I was embar-
rassed to have so publicly com-
plimented someone who could
make such offensive and igno-
rant comments.
I debated for a while whether
to even write on this incident,
as it occurred some months ago
and largely faded from the pub-
lic discussion. Nevertheless, I
believe it raises age-old ques-
tions about our understandings
of and interactions with art.
Namely, where is the divid-
ing line between art and artist?
Does such a line even exist?
Whenever this topic comes
up, there are always those who
deride thinking too deeply on
art as an extension of the art-
ist. They look at works of art as
sensory, and thus objective. In
this interpretation, authenticity
of reaction is based solely on the
visceral experience of the view-
er. In other words, your enjoy-
ment of a book, movie, album,
etc. can be wholly separated
from your knowledge of the art-
ist’s character.
Unfortunately, this opinion
all too often mutates into a
perverse form of hero-worship,
in which the memories of
pleasure
in
a
viewer
are
privileged above those whose
experiences, and, in fact, very
existence are made vulnerable
by the artist’s bigotry.
To me, the interaction with
art, whether through watching a
movie, reading a book or gazing at
a painting, is an intimate experi-
ence between viewer and artist.
It is an encountering of souls, in
which both parties give and take,
with the actual work serving as a
conduit of sorts.
Thus, when a favorite artist,
someone we believe to have both
known and been known by, dis-
appoints us, the betrayal is that
much more intense.
Examples of such betray-
als abound, though of a more
extreme nature, like the pedo-
philia
and
rape
allegations
against Woody Allen and charges
against Roman Polanski, and the
current debates over the broad-
casting of “The Cosby Show”
amid the numerous rape accusa-
tions against Bill Cosby.
Focusing again on literature,
there is an unhappy excess of
cases, both contemporary and
historical, in which the prejudices
of the author spark conversation
around denouncing their work.
Recently, the film “Ender’s
Game,” based on a science fiction
novel of the same name, was boy-
cotted by many in the LGBTQ and
ally community over the overtly
homophobic views and remarks
of the author Orson Scott Card.
The
situation
becomes
even more convoluted when
we look to authors of the
past.
Racism,
sexism,
anti-
Semitism, xenophobia — almost
no historical author is left
unmarked by these prejudices.
Even
authors
that
seemed
impressively
progressive
in
some areas are often revealed
to
have
been
horrifyingly
intolerant in others.
L. Frank Baum, the author of
“The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,”
was a strong supporter of wom-
en’s suffrage and gender equality.
He also condoned the wholesale
genocide of Native Americans.
Jack London, author of “The
Call of the Wild,” was a passion-
ate advocate for worker’s rights
and for the prevention of cruelty
to animals. He was also a sup-
porter of violent, racially based
colonialism.
As a society, we tend to excuse
the humanitarian failings of his-
torical figures. We hem and haw
about looking at the orthodoxi-
cal context and prevailing social
norms of the time. We say they
couldn’t have known better.
But what differentiates some-
one from being labeled a “product
of the times” to being recognized
as plainly hateful? Is it the depth
of their convictions? The amount
of divergence from the popular
opinion of the time? The quality
of their work?
I don’t have the answers to
these questions. I’m not sure what
the correct course of action is
when we confront such issues.
I think it is essential to acknowl-
edge and discuss the ethical fail-
ings of artists we very often place
on pedestals. I do not believe,
however, that the ultimate answer
is to simply not read authors with
problematic views or histories.
I think the solution lies in part
in reading the works of the “Oth-
ers,” those attacked, marginalized
groups grappling with the injus-
tices of both the past and pres-
ent. Through their stories we can
encounter their souls, and hope-
fully we may see the humanity
that has too often been denied.
As a literary community, we
can also continue to stand up
and speak out against harmful
remarks like those made by Han-
dler, which seek to belittle and
erase those diverse voices fighting
to be heard in mainstream pub-
lishing.
Prosniewski is writing and
reading about assholes. Are you
an asshole? To let her know,
email gpros@umich.edu.
GRACE
PROSNIEWSKI
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