Author: Chad Matheny

I will begin tomorrow to gradually release a new Emperor X tour EP. I’ll post one song every day or so over the next week to coincide with the upcoming concerts in the northeastern United States.

The EP, entitled Suggested Improvements to Transportation Infrastructure in the Northeast Corridor, consists of six tracks, each corresponding to a concert in the associated city and addressing specific infrastructure features that locals might recognize.

These songs are not cold hyper-local policy recommendations They are free-associative meditations on cold hyper-local policy recommendations. Or something…I don’t know, it’s hard to describe the emotions triggered by transit policy and 30 years of public infrastructure memories.

Also, it’s all done on tape four-track, so it’ll probably sound to you more like The Joytakers’ Rakes/Stars on the Ceiling, Pleasantly Kneeling than anything I’ve done over the past few decades.

Here’s the release schedule:

1. “Friendship Heights Metro Station and Related Proposal for Alignment Adjustments to the Purple Line (for WMATA)”

Released on Feb. 28 at 10:00am Eastern via Bandcamp

Concert in D.C. on Mar. 22 at Pie Shop –> https://bit.ly/3DpUOiu

2. “An Objection to the Location of the Entrance to the Girard Ave. ACME (for SEPTA)”

Released on Mar. 8 at 10:00am Eastern via Bandcamp

Concert in Philadelphia on Mar. 23 at Ukie Club –> https://link.dice.fm/O43ddc06a27d

3. “We Demand Passaic/Bergen/Hudson Tri-County Rail Now! (for NJDOT)”

Released on Mar. 9 at 10:00am Eastern via Bandcamp

Concert in Paterson, NJ on Mar. 24 at Prototype 237 –> https://prototype237.ticketleap.com/emperorx/

4. “Shoegaze Hydroplane City USA (for CDOT)”

Released on Mar. 10 at 10:00am Eastern via Bandcamp

Concert in New Haven on Mar. 25 at The State House –> Eventbrite

5. “DMT/JMZ (for MTA)”

Released on Mar. 11 at 10:00am Eastern here via Bandcamp

Concert in Brooklyn on Mar. 26 at The Broadway –> https://bit.ly/3jngFQW

6. “Bullet Train to Worcester (for MBATA)”

Released on Mar. 12 at 10:00am Eastern here via Bandcamp

Concert in Boston on Mar. 27 at O’Brien’s –> https://bit.ly/3WVMu0L

Sa.11.Mar. – Stockholm, SE – Hus 7 w/ Freja the Dragon

We.22.Mar. – Washington, DC – Pie Shop w/ Eyelids

Th.23.Mar. – Philadelphia, PA – Ukie Club

Fr.24.Mar. – Paterson, NJ – Prototype 237 w/ RAI

Sa.25.Mar. – New Haven, CT – The State House w/ TWIABP and Cinema Stare

Su.26.Mar. – Brooklyn, NY – The Broadway

Mo.27.Mar. – Boston, MA – O’Brien’s w/ Pink Navel and Mercet

This one’s going to be magic. Get tickets (quickly) here.

“Chad R. Matheny är vad många skulle kalla excentriker,” de säger. Har de rätt? Kom till Hus 7 den 11 mars för att bedöma själv.

Tickets –> https://slakthusen.se/freja-the-dragon-emperor-x-sticky-baby/

My first show in Berlin was at this spot in…I’m guessing 2012? 2013? Not entirely sure, but I know it was here and I know it cemented me wanting to move to Europe. Absolute legend of a venue. I’ll be playing some new songs through a tiny distorted amp and yelling a lot and recording the whole thing in pristine stereo 44.1 kHz 16-bit .WAV format and uploading it to a platform I’m playing with to see if the audio of my live shows is AI-replicable, so come and shout along if you want to be in the training data.

Fri. 27 January — 19:00 — Schokoladen — Tickets

There will be more tour news about March 2023 in a few days, too.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about this after playing it at the past few shows. “Christmas Morning in My Girlfriend’s Car,” which I have been told is a “bop,” will go out as the clock strikes midnight going from 12/24 –> 12/25 as track 1 of this: https://emperorx.bandcamp.com/album/-

12-16 in Philly: https://thechampagnejam.com
12-18 in Silver Spring, MD: https://forms.gle/VHRP361XZx4MTk5d9
12-23 in Gainesville, FL: https://instagram.com/roadhousediy/
12-24 ДУЖЕ ЧУДОВЕ РІЗДВО: Preorder here for a (Gregorian) Christmas Eve download: https://emperorx.bandcamp.com/album/-

• ??? (o_-)

Berlinos of the Internet: you are home now. That means you will have plenty of energy tomorrow night to: 1) listen to me throw song words at you at Marie Antoinette, 2) listen to Wild Pink do same, and 3) rage all night with us when we’re done. ACQUIRE TIX HERE –> https://goodliveartists.com/artists/wild-pink

I posted this on Twitter earlier this week. I respond to the results below..

FREE WILL:

We agree, 64.7% majority “free will exists” voters. For now I’m convinced by libertarian arguments (not in the political sense of course; I mean libertarian as opposed to compatibilism or determinism.) Don’t know what flavor (event-causal, agent-causal, etc.) yet. Working on it.

GOD:

We agree, 27.4% minority “God exists” voters. I see an uncaused universe as implausible. “What caused God then?” It’s God, all the way up. This is my most teleological opinion; I hereby submit myself to the philosophy cops for interrogation, during which I will behave very badly.

ROBOT CONSCIOUSNESS:

We agree, 54% majority “non-bio. consc. is possible” voters. We exist; physical consciousness is clearly possible. No principle rules out other physical forms. This is NOT a reductive position. Less “we’re not special,” more “we’re special, and many other things COULD BE special.”