nquit – Aaron J. Trumm

Strong Happy Healthy Free

January 17, 2017 by Aaron

aaron j. trumm, donate life, hip-hop, nquit, nquit music, organ donation, rap, strong happy healthy free, transplant, transplant games, unos, world transplant games

22 people die every day waiting for organ transplants. There are currently 119,000 people waiting.

The above song and video, “Strong Happy Healthy Free” is dedicated to them. In July of 2013, I was lucky enough to receive a life saving double lung transplant, which revived me in ways I can never even describe. I’m forever grateful, and this mantra “I am strong, I am happy, I am healthy, I am free” was my main mantra through the trials of a “transplant saga”, as my family called it. This is song is dedicated to anyone going through similar trials, and hopefully it reminds you that you can get through.

Images from this video are from the Donate Life Transplant Games of America, which celebrates new life and brings awareness about the importance of organ donation. As a life long athlete, I’m a big ol’ supporter of the US and World Transplant Games, and I participate! I was a 100 meter bronze medalist in the 2014 US Games and took 2nd in the Lyrics For Life competition (a signing competition 🙂 ) in the 2016 US Games. Fun times! I believe in spreading awareness this way.

How can I help, you say?

Well there are a few things right now, that I’d love for you to do.

The World Transplant Games is upcoming, in Summer 2017, and Team USA could use your support. If you’re interested in helping team USA, you can make a TAX DEDUCTABLE donation here:I’ve set up my own fundraising page connected to Team USA and I’d love to raise $1150 for the team by April 15, 2017!
You can of course also support the making of more music and videos by me and the team here at NQuit Music, and spread the message while you’re at it! Get the T-Shirt (or the long sleeve version I wear in the video) and download the single!

$25-$37 Select Options
$2.00 Download Single
No matter what you do, I encourage you to help by registering to be an organ donor at either of these places:
You could save multiple lives, restore sight, and make all kinds of other positive difference.

Thanks for listening, watching, and reading!

— Aaron J. Trumm

Two Trains

February 4, 2016 by Aaron

andre de korvin, music, nquit, piano, poetry, techno, third option, two trains

Hey! Still (slowly) writing little bits about tracks. Here is track 3 from the main The Four Hard Edges Of War:

I didn’t do it on purpose (except maybe subconsciously), but I can’t help but notice the beat is sort of like – well – a train chugging along. Chigga chigga chigga chigga – CHOO CHOO!

“I would like to sleep, oblivious of the thousand faces of corruption” – see it’s lines like that that just get me. Andre de Korvin is a badass poet!

What else can we say about this track that you might care about? Well there’s two piano tracks again. And there’s some crazy delay effects on them. There’s also several versions of the drum track that kind of get layered. I love when the beats just BREAK and for like a measure is JUST live piano – that sounds fantastic to me. I love contrast and I love natural instruments….oh and then it breaks again and he’s talking “and ivy grows from dolls with cut off heads…”

I’m not sure I actually love this song personally though…it’s so airy and ethereal in a way that I don’t enjoy, but hopefully other people. That’s something to note. A lot of times you just make the music that YOU want to hear…but sometimes the muse pulls you and you end up just playing, composing, doing something that you really don’t even care for as a listener, it’s not what you would have thought of, it’s just flowing through you. It’s not for you and it may not even be FROM you, if you believe in that sort of spiritual stuff. I think letting that happen is really very key. I think that’s a part of the right of passage of a creative person, especially a professional, to be able to follow the muse, and follow through and finish things, and let go and let it be for other people. I talk about it being for other people a lot. That’s why musicians seem to crave attention or fame, I think. Because they want to know that what they’re doing musically is affecting and moving other people. It’s this dream to think of gobs of people having a relationship with something you made…

I still like that thought…

Ok I got mixing to do…

Kong

September 11, 2008 by Aaron

fusion music, kong, monkey set, nquit, piano, poem, techno, trance

Kong, by Third Option

and here we are
at the green leafy apocalypse of it all
fallen down
broken bones

temptation sin and banishment
here we are
in the locker rooms and candlewax shops we forgot about
everything torn down and overrun

king kong fallen in the night
done in by monkeys
mighty mighty mad world
might wonder why the jungle does this

but we all know
it was the aching sun at fault
comparing the trusses of the castles of the sky to arms
making as much sense as a garden full of monkeys
laughing laughing laughing
crazy at the sight of king kong’s blood

“some might have thought,” they howled
as he felt long ago
how one ape rule the land
tile monkeys merge one day
on high ground

til one becomes 10 becomes a million of us
joined by the tail

standing in the blazing sun
one mega monkey with a crown
gleaming
choking
groping for a name

we forgot the last
we beat sense into our own breast and put the smaller monkeys back
we call ourselves king
and kong sits soon to follow

Hmm. Interesting. A lot in here. I’ll just listen.

You too! 🙂 If you haven’t already, you can get some free downloads at thirdoptionmusic.com 🙂

– Aaron

[purchase_link id=”1318″ text=”Download The Monkey Set Here” style=”button” color=”blue”]

B-Movie

August 7, 2008 by Aaron

aaron trumm, b-movie, cult of nice, nquit, piano, poetry, scary movie, tamara nicholl, third option

B-Movie, by Third Option

This one has more pieces of the “Cult Of Nice” essay, read by Tamara.

A thing I like about this one is I had all the drums and everything decided, and then we were mix the song and we were like “the snare drum is weak can’t we do something with that?” so I tried running it through a guitar distortion thing, and it totally changed the nature of the snare drum, which totally changed the nature of the whole thing.

I like this one. There’s something so different and badass about it, where it sort of seems like somebody else did it. But then it has this flute sound that really reminds me of the first Third Option Frosted Mini Wheats thingy.

Man. There’s this organ in here and everything. And these little pitz pluck strings. And delayed stuff. And man I used to be so creative!! 🙂

I suppose I still am. Hmmm. Does creativity go away due to becomming cynical?

There’s so much shit in here. Somebody once said it stressed them out. I dunno I guess it’s supposed to in a way. Not that I ever try that stupid thing where you hate something or something is so tedious and the artist goes “you’re SUPPOSED to hate it! that was my goal!” Oh PULEASE you lying sack of arrogant.

My aunt was talking about a movie the other day with us, and she said (paraphrasing) “I guess if the director was trying to get us to feel the feeling of being in the south at that time and being so incredibly bored then they succeeded, but I just got the feeling that he didn’t notice he was making a movie”

*laughs and laughs*

Anyway enjoy being maniacally stressed by B-Movie. I think that’s the right title though. She talks about the monster creeping up through the toaster and I think it sounds sort of B-Movie ish. In fact I think I was in a very loose way emulating the sound/style of a soundtrack that I was engineering on, that the son of the owner of the studio, Steven Romano, was doing.

He was actually doing the soundtrack for Bubba Hotep, which may be a movie you heard of. I was engineering for him. It was very dense stuff. Unfortunately the movie makers went behind his back while he was working on it and paid somebody ELSE 20,000 dollars to do another score, and that’s what they used. I don’t know, maybe he took too long or something. What a rip.

Anywho, you don’t need to go behind my back or pay $20k to get you some FREE tracks from Third Option – just go HERE and get em! 🙂

[purchase_link id=”1325″ text=”Download Cult Of Nice Here” style=”button” color=”blue”]

Get the CD Here

Music blog, here it is

July 3, 2008 by Aaron

aaron j. trumm, blog, inspiration, music blog, nquit, nquit music

I don’t want to call this an experiment ’cause that jacks with my sense of it being worthwhile. This is a new blog, where I’m gonna talk about my music, and I might talk about other music or even art. I’m just gonna talk about it, from a conceptual or emotional level. I’m probably going to post a lot of mp3s to download because ultimately I want more people to listen to and enjoy the stuff. I might talk about other people’s stuff, and I might refrain from getting into whether stuff is good, bad, etc. Let’s be clear, though, I’m not a reviewer, I’m not a press person, I’m not even really a label exec (even though I own my label). I’m just an artist and most of the bullshit around it has gotten so old.

So now there’s a couple of us, me and Iguanamind/Larry and monkeyking/Troy specifically, who’ve been developing this new way of thinking about art and music, and originally it had a lot of “let’s make a revolution” in it, but over the years, I think we’ve all come to this need for relief. We’re not fucking politicians, we’re musicians. All we ever wanted to do was just make the stuff. For me, it’s still not about just making it, but sharing it, and that’s where things go awry, because then it gets to be about promotion, and popularity, and competition, and man, this stuff, the message that I’m receiving in the melodies, the one that’s straight from God or the Universe or whatever, has nothing to do with all that.

So first I started changing my NQuit site to just be about presenting the content, and then Larry convinced me yesterday that creating this blog which is not about promotion, not even about technical stuff, just a thing to basically express, and let whoever will appreciate it come, would be a healthy thing.

I don’t know if I’ve said anything clear there. It doesn’t matter. I’m gonna put a link now to a really really old track, but I don’t care, because I really just want to put as much content up as possible, so fuck it, I’ll start with stuff that’s 13 years old! It’s my old stage name, and I think it’s dorky so I dropped it, but here’s a track:

[sc_embed_player fileurl=”http://www.nquit.com/sounds/MCMurph/ArtisticApocalypse/02MCMurphMagneticPoetry.mp3″] Magnetic Poetry by M.C. Murph

Drums!

June 30, 2008 by Aaron

aaron j. trumm, drums, music, nquit, recording, snare

Man the hardest part about a production is the drums. Well, that is, if you want real drums. It really is HELL. Because you have to find a drummer that can do the job, find a kit (hopefully that drummer can do it), find the studio time at the right studio, book it, get it right. With money it’s easier, but really if you’re not in a normal “band”, the drum part of a production is simultaneously the most crucial-make-or-break part, and the hardest part to get right.

But with the net and digital audio and stuff, I’ve been experimenting with collaborating with people by sending them a rough mix and asking for a guitar part or whatnot, and recently I realized “there must be professional drummers with well equipped drum recording studios out there who will remotely collaborate!” and sure enough, I’ve found at least one that I’m trying out.

I don’t know if this remote collaboration trend is ENTIRELY healthy though. Not having to relate face to face and be together is yet another example of the computer “age” ruining our connectedness. But I’m doing it, partly because I fear people on occassion, and partly because fuck it let’s try. At least I’m not text messaging anymore. And I am going to do some collaborating with REAL people here in town.

Nevertheless it’s exciting to be able to collaborate this way. I have several tracks out there pending possible work from several friends who are spread out all over. I’ve gotten one back so far, a couple of tracks in the very newest Third Option project. My girlfriend is napping in my bed right now, perhaps I’ll set up a mic and wake her up and say “hey sing for me”.

If only she would learn screamin lead rock guitar…

Still Phase Motion Mix

June 21, 2008 by Aaron

mix, nquit, nquit music, phase motion, poetry, slam poetry, spoken word, still, tamara nicholl, techno, third option

“Still Phase Motion Mix” by Third Option.

It seems like I was probably moving from one mix to the next, tweaking the next one based on the last. But I don’t necessarily remember. Sure I do! I was! Dammit! :)0

Well what can I say about this version? It’s a little different. It’s – a …uhm. Here’s the thing, how about we just listen to it?

Now that we’ve done that, what do YOU have to say? I mean hit me up, you know? aarontrumm @ nquit . com – tell me what you hear here. Oooooh hear here!!

And as per the usual, I’d love to give you free stuff 🙂 So here’s some free stuff right in this link! 🙂

– Aaron

[purchase_link id=”1327″ text=”Download Still Here” style=”button” color=”blue”]