One of the great things about living in New York is you hear and see stuff walking around The City. Crazy stuff. Intimate stuff. More crazy stuff. Pro tip, when you visit New York City, pay attention to what you talk about on the street cause… we’re all listening, and you could end up in my blog.

So on my daily walk I just heard, “But I don’t have a fax machine.”

I can relate. I finally got rid of our fax machine. Not all that long ago. OK maybe a little long ago, but I held onto that thing for a good long time. I paid 600 bucks for it. Don’t judge. It was the 90s and $600 was a lot of money for a starving jingle writer, living in a fifth-floor walk-up on the not-so-nice part of the Upper Westside.

It was as heavy as a Parliament/Funkadelic groove and about the size of one of those anchors you see on a cruise ship. But boy could that machine fax. And I felt like a big deal, even though I don’t remember all that much that needed faxing. What the hell was I faxing? Anyway…

You laugh, but… there’s no real way to hack a fax machine. You send something to somebody, and if they don’t want to get it, they block your number.

Don’t like to read? Victoria reads this email to you!

You can’t hide a virus in a fax. And it can’t lock you out of your computer and hold it ransom for a million dollars. Yep, some pretty good technology that fax machine.

Now, has Kevin changed his weekly email topic from “interesting stuff about the music and live shows he makes as told through the rich history of his personal life” to “tips on cyber security”?

Lucky for you… no. Cuz I had to finally throw that computer away and start over – nothing in there was worth a million bucks.

But… the fax machine is cool technology. There’s a human element to it. Somebody had to go over to the machine, put in a piece of paper, dial a number, hit the send button, and then do that all over again, because they had forgotten that the paper has to go face down. Then they had to talk to someone on the other end of the phone who had picked up the call and was saying “Hello? Hello?” while completely ignoring the loud and annoying beeping sound the fax machine was making.

You’d then have to explain that you were sending a fax to the “fax number” they had given you, and they’d say, “What are you faxing me?” Then you’d have to tell them, and if it wasn’t a court summons they’d say, “Oops, try again and I won’t pick up.”

I know I’ve lost our younger readers by now, and I’m now remembering why the fax machine was crap technology, but I’ve got a big wrap-up coming so let’s just keep going.

So… when you hung up with the person calling you and were relieved that you weren’t being served, and a piece of paper finally dropped out of your machine, there was usually somebody’s signature on it and a place where they had left a coffee cup ring.

See? The fax machine is basically the definition of great immersive storytelling. It’s human. You had a shared experience. You got to participate. It’s unique cuz no two coffee cup stains are the same, and… you almost get as high from the inkjet fumes as you did from sniffing mimeograph paper in high school.

Best of all there was drama. A challenge you had to overcome and… finally a release, and a sigh of relief that you did not have to go to court that week.

This is the point you’re probably wondering how the hell is Kevin gonna tie all this back to AliƧin, TINK, or one of his other crazy album-show-project things?

And that’s an excellent question. And people always say “That’s an excellent question” when they’re vamping for time before giving you an answer.

But the answer is “the fax machine.” Each one of our concept albums, live shows, books and other stuff – whether you experience them on a turntable, in a theater, or an immersive dome like the Las Vegas Sphere – bring you a human and uniquely shared experience that lets you participate in a great story, with grooves as heavy as Parliament/Funkadelic, that almost get you as high as the fumes from the mimeograph machine in high school.

I think I’m gonna put that on the website.

Now I gotta go for a walk and eavesdrop my next blog post.

That’s it. I’m not gonna get all mushy.

See ya ~ Kevin

p.s. The website is spinning some deep cuts from a Parliament/Funkadelic re-issue. The socials are mimeographing pictures of their butt.