One of the most interesting people I met up with at NAMM was Sam Botstein of Tipsy Circuits. Sam is the producer of The Distillery, a podcast that also talks to media art people, focusing primarily on music (and often analog) people. But Sam was at NAMM showing off a new Eurorack module - the Emperor, an Intel-loaded computing box-in-a-module. I have to admit that it was pretty damned cool to see Max, Maschine and other products running within a Eurorack system.
So we set up an interview date/time and pulled it off. But it turned out that Sam has a much more diverse background than most folks - in this discussion, he took me on a journey from playing with the Extreme Trumpet Mafia, through Keith McMillen's CalArts and Mills tribes, slipstreaming through turntablism and lymphoma, and ending up on the NAMM show floor with a Great Big Module and an even bigger plan. It was a wild ride.
And he's only 21.
An amazing individual share an amazing story. Enjoy!