User:Eatthestipe/DJ Stipe

DJ Stipe is a lyrically motivated songwriter and reluctant musician. He has played a handful of venues in or around Sacramento, CA, though focusing most of his energy exploring new lyrical concepts. While the range of subjects coverred in DJ's song catalogue is fairly diverse, common themes are reinvention, hope and personal responsability.

Stipe has lived in a variety of conditions, from Compton to the Minnesota suburbs, from the streets of Minneapolis to a US Frigate in the Navy. Each of these conditions has shaped his songwriting vision, and while early work can be seen as dark and hopeless, the new stuff that has replaced and surpassed it (in terms of performance frequency), brings the same themes into a more hopeful atmosphere. "The Cannibal Song", which might be seen as the pivotal work that bridged the two personalities, is a catchy exploration of his own lack of self perception, and how he replaced this by consuming other peoples perceptions as his own - "I've gotten by this far consuming other peoples' brains/I'm not a cannibal, I just gotta know what they think of me."

The writing of this song shed light on a more approachable exploration of dark situations - telling the story of how somebody overcame addiction, for example ("Cornerstone"), can be more powerful than communicating the dispair one feels within the throes of it. Another technique of his is to project his own failures and shortcomings onto fictional characters, which allows the telling of the story from a less personal standpoint, and the result can be seen in his opus, "Jack and Jill" where he splits his personality into two characters, a couple, who stuggle through the acceptance of the others' shortcomings, and ends in an outro that begs for humanity to see its own potential and, more or less, forgive its own shortcomings.

The darkness is still there. His song "Mason Jars" is a simple, yet profound, tale of incestual molestation that uses the canning jar as a metaphor for bottling up the results of such issues ("Grandma had her own way of canning up the spoils from granpa's garden/He liked to pick em young, he liked to keep em home". It recalls the simple profundity of Neil Young's "Needle and the Damage Done", though the 3/4 time signature lends to a more upbeat overall feel.

DJ Stipe began playing to small crowds in and around the Sacramento area in the summer of 2006, initially playing a single song, "The Cannibal Song (Note To Self)" at Luna's Cafe during a poetry open mic. The performance was well received. The simplicity of the music and lack of extensive instrumentation, lends itself to quiet, attentative listeners. DJ continues to play to the occasional small crowd, but has expressed interest in bringing other musicians into the mix before thinking about promotion.

In 2009, he authored his own Wikipedia entry, using third person, though the entire entry was written by a single person...himself.

He lives with his wife and two children in a small community just outside of Sacramento.