Duncan Taylor stars in ‘Audio File’

Duncan Taylor takes a break from his full-time job as a designer for various newspapers to pen his column, “Audio File,” that appears every Friday in the Colorado Daily.

He’s the music master, the sound master and the Second Story Garage master. Second Story Garage is the newsroom’s music video studio, where Duncan acts as producer and sound engineer. Check out his work at www.secondstorygarage.com.

But for now, let’s learn more about the man behind the earbuds.

Tell us something juicy about you.

Bongo Love and I are tight from way back. Once upon a time I started a reggae night in Boulder at a hotel dance bar called Club Dread. It was hot and sweaty and bumped hard. Occasionally, the hotel had to refund the first floor because of the booty-shaking going on.

Anyway, the first time I met Bongo Love he told me he’d cut my head off with a machete if my partner and I didn’t let his band play at our club. “That’s how we do it in Zimbabwe,” I think he said. I love that guy, and his band was great. He’s making sculptures now and still playing gigs with his eponymous band.

What album are you most anticipating this fall?

Oh man. Well Ben Folds has something out early September, I’ll definitely give it a listen. While not an album, I’m really excited for Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (in Denver) and its massive headphones and portable devices sideshow called Can Jam. That’s October 2-4. Interested to see what Battles do with their new album later in September. Definitely Darkstar late September/early October. Disclosure’s new one around the same time should be fun.

Tell us an awesome childhood memory.

Around age 14, over a summer my dad and I, inspired by Huck Finn, built a DIY paddle-only pontoon raft via 55-gallon drums, plywood and deck paint. Our plan: follow the tide of Jacksonville, Florida’s mile-wide St. Johns River down to an awaiting party a few miles away. We did not make it. Turns out, the tide isn’t very fast 100 yards from shore in a mile-wide river. We had to army crawl under the open windows of a suppering family’s corner dining room to make it unseen from their dock to an awaiting getaway car in their driveway. Never saw that thing again.

If you won a multi-million dollar lottery, what’s the first thing you would buy?

Oh, probably buy some land around here and start putting weird things on it like a dik-dik preserve or a massive go-kart track or an indoor bike-polo arena. Or like, totally unrelated, but maybe look into where science is these days regarding holodecks and teleportation. And phasers.

If rabid chupacabras invaded Colorado and you could only grab an armful of things in a hasty evacuation, what would they be?

Hopefully grab some contact solution, sheesh. No, seriously, I’m heading straight for my stash of flame throwers in the garage because there is nothing more satisfying against a chupacabra.

Tell us your life motto via song lyric.

“Oh the hardest battle was ever on the Western Plains/ Oh the hardest battle was ever on the Western Plains/ When me and a bunch of cowboys run into Jesse James/ Come a cow cow yiki come a cow cow yiki yiki yeah”

Where is your favorite spot in Boulder to park your bum?

This summer is a Boulder Rez summer for me. There most weekends, sometimes playing bocce but always dodging goose turds down at Dream Cove. I love the Rez.

Who is your hero?

I think Pat Metheny is a musician superhero. Approachable, available, he’s got 30-plus albums and what 17 grammys? Oh sorry, 20. And he’s been on tour for 30 years seems like. I don’t know how he does it.

If you were in a band, what musicians would be on board and what would your creative duty be? What’s the band’s name?

We would be called Weinzilla and Timmy O’Neill would be our drummer. Scott Scholz on bass. Dave on guit-fiddle. I would be chief gear connector, but probably also play guitar and wail towards a mic.

Which musician would you love to sit at the bar with? And what would your beverage of choice be?

Famous recording engineer Alan Sides. We’d talk about the fun of trying to make good recordings in a bad room with cheap gear. Hopefully pounding heady pale ales.

Read more Duncan: www.coloradodaily.com/columnists.