Before the first story

I've been lucky enough to live a few different lives in my professional life. They overlap and complement each other in ways I never expected.

I studied anthropology at Columbia, where working under Aaron Fox on archives of recorded sound taught me to understand recordings as cultural artifacts. Since 2013 I've been making music for brand campaigns at Big Foote Music + Sound, and for local artists around NYC, which taught me to work fast in the studio and be dynamic on stage. Then I toured the world with Sir Chloe, who took me on the road for five years, playing festivals, arenas, theaters and the like. Still one of the most profound journeys I could ever imagine.

Seeing the world from that vantage point opened my eyes to how different people are, and also how we all experience the same problems. I thought long and hard about how culture shifts depending on context, and how technology can help or hurt depending on how it's framed and used.

That question is what I work on now. I'm building Intelligence Meridian, where I help people and businesses get understood accurately by their audiences, their collaborators, and the intelligent tools they use in their work. In a way it brings me back to those archives at Columbia: the work has to be framed in the right context before anyone can understand it.

My résumé lists what I've done, but there's a lot of life between those lines. This journal is where I get to share it.

Every week I'll post an insight or a story from one of those lives. It might be about a collaboration, a night on tour, or how a session can go terribly wrong and perhaps how to save it. They won't be in order, so jump in anywhere.

If something here connects to your own work, or you just have a question, write to me. I'd love to hear from you.

Cheers,

Palmer