Pop, in Service of the Good

The term fin du siècle (or “end of the century”) is, of course, an exaggeration because we are not at the end of the century at all. Nevertheless, it does feel like the end of a DIY era – though, as I will explain at the end of this essay, I would never say that […]

When I say “towards an Asian-American Music”, you may get the impression that I’m talking about a creative endeavor to create a new musical style or genre that is related in content-specific ways to Asian-American culture or history. That’s a natural reaction given American societal conceptions of music, I suppose. But there’s reason to suspect […]

There is a song that I released a few days with a reference to a Highway 80 in Kansas.  The lyric references the experience of trying to drive home over the holidays in a flashback of sorts, with the protagonist trying to make it home in time to enjoy Christmas with his parents.  Except, there […]

In academia, the minimum standard for publishing work is two-fold. An article must say something novel, and it must say something substantial. In other words, you have to say something new and that new thing had to be important enough to publish. The standard, which we will call “the academic standard” works as a kind […]

I was invited to give a lecture about my music videos at the University of Kentucky by the department of Musicology and Ethnomusicology, as part of the Year of Migration series.  Below are the notes from that lecture, entitled “The Return Home”. ///**// The Return Home: First of all, thank you for giving me the […]

I was talking with a few PR people of some repute a few months ago, and I remarked that the cost of getting any attention in the indie music scene was so cost prohibitive, that it effectively cut out even the upper-middle class from being represented in indie music.  The effect of this is that […]

Photo Courtesy of An Rong Xu.  Print Version of the Article can be obtained at: https://perfectstrangersmag.com/   St. Lenox is the singer-songwriter alter ego of Andrew Choi, who also happens to be an attorney in commercial litigation; the holder of a doctoral degree in philosophy (with a focus on Kantian ethics); and a former concert violinist […]

You wouldn’t know this, but a pet peeve I have is when people refer to me as someone who went to Juilliard. It’s an annoyance I let slide, because I think people don’t really know any better. You see, although I did go to Juilliard for a bit, attending the pre-college program, it’s actually not […]

What to say about a third record? Having passed the second record – a typical minefield for music acts – I feel very little worry. I’ve finished recording, and have handed the record over for mastering. After which, we hand it over for specifically lacquer mastering, where it is subsequently pressed into vinyl form. The […]

Maybe 7 year ago or so, a bar manager for a bar in Columbus that I used to frequent, told me about how their dress code (no baggy pants, no baseball caps) was their way of excluding black clientele.  I was a bit surprised, not just because of the existence of the policy in the […]