“This song means a lot to me, because every time I listen to it I remember how far I’ve come.”
— Riley Max

Doctor Noize Licenses Content To Universal Theme Park

I just signed a licensing contract with NBC Universal for Doctor Noize content to appear at one of their theme parks beside the likes of SpongeBob, Trolls, Minions and Shrek! So that was not an email I expected... but it's gonna be really, really cool. Very excited about it. Kinda can't believe it. More details soon, but here’s a hint…

“It is sometimes wise to plug one’s nose when playing my music.”
— Doctor Noize

Pockets Of Appreciation

Today we wrap production and complete the master of Riley’s new album before she flies back to the East coast for Year 4. It will be released on October 2nd, and it is… magnificent. Soulful. A deeply personal longform work she’s proud of as an artist and I’m proud of as a producer. It’s truly her. We can’t wait to share it with you. In the meantime…

The album’s first single, Pockets, has been getting love all over the place. This makes me happy. Riley’s also done a bunch of recent interviews about Pockets and the album. You can Google these if you’d like to see if she can put a complete sentence together about her music.** But in case she can’t, here are some people who can:

“With its heartfelt writing, gentle production, and emotionally rich perspective, Pockets… is a song about change, but even more, it is a song about finding beauty in what remains.”
— Rotate Magazine

“Pockets is a defining moment for the artist, a deeply personal track touching on gratitude, growing apart from a loved one, navigating anxiety and more… At just 21, Riley Max is already carving out a multidimensional creative path.”
— Daily Waffle, UK

“With its warm, charming folk-pop surfaces, Pockets finds Riley Max at her best, exposing authentic emotions via her splendid voice.”
— Guitar Girl Magazine

“Pockets feels like opening an old drawer and finding little pieces of your past still tucked inside. Riley Max wraps growing apart, anxiety and gratitude in gentle indie-folk warmth, and I especially love the realization at the heart of it: sometimes we don’t understand what a chapter gave us until we’re already standing somewhere new.”
— Music N Gear

On September 10th, I release my joyfully crafted Doctor Noize retrospective album Positive Energy! (The Music of Doctor Noize). And then I, too, will be taking a planned long and winding road*** in a new direction — many new directions, actually — to stand somewhere new. My creative focus is about to change. And, as the above reviewer adeptly observes, I won’t understand what the last chapter gave me either until I arrive at the new one. More on that in Noizeletters to come.

Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.
— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize

*Harvard is too pretentious to call Majors… Majors. They call them Concentrations. Because Harvard.
**I mean, let’s be honest, it’s possible Riley is not answering the interview questions at all, and they’re actually being answered by her large posse and staff of nobody. Or A.I. Which incidentally is short for Allen Iverson. Allen Iverson is The Singularity. I just gave away a major plot point in upcoming history.
***I feel like that could like totally be a song.

“Soulful and poetic, her songs will pull on your heartstrings.”

— STANFORD Magazine

It’s so fun watching your damn kids grow up. Riley was already quite the songwriter three years ago with her debut album. But now… she’s three years into a joint undergraduate degree in Music and Art, Film & Visual Studies; stars onstage in incredible concert and musical productions there each year; and has spent a lot of time developing her production craft at Harvard’s recording studio, Stanford’s recording studio (where she’s part of my teaching team), and Reach Studios. She’s soaked in the artistry and the engineering from everywhere she roams. And it shows.

I loved Riley’s first album ROY G BIV.** It was a brilliant concept album by a teenager, featured on lots of international playlists and international flights on multiple airlines after receiving rave reviews globally. It showed colleges what sort of artistry she would bring to their campus if she became a student there. And she’s done just that.

“Getting Comfortable In My Own Skin”

But Pockets and her upcoming second album represent where she is now. A young woman three years later. Pondering that she’s soon to graduate from her place of learning. Her safe place. Almost gone. Looking backwards, forwards, in the now. Trying things. Considering her next move with both excitement and trepidation. More confident, but also more aware of the beauty and the flaws in both this world and its people, including herself. An artist willing to get even more raw and personal in her songwriting, like she does with a deft light touch in Pockets and with heartbreaking intensity on her next single, Year One. Her art — like her life — is her show completely now. And I’m glad she’s sharing it.***

There’s nothing I love more than seeing young adults in that moment of real actualization and discovery. It’s what this world needs more than ever. A fresh take. New energy and perspective. People who still have the optimism to learn, teach, share, write, sing, work on their game, and listen. It’s why I still teach workshops and artist in residencies nationwide. It’s why I still produce music by young artists.

“Sometimes Life Just Has A Way Of Sortin’ Itself Out”

Of course I’m biased. But listen to and watch Pockets and ask yourself if this sounds like a classic, timeless artist to you.**** An almost effortlessly gifted singer/songwriter and performer. In this sense Pockets reminds me of ROY G BIV’s first single Blue. Both are written and performed in a style that’s never the pop flavor of the moment but will always be cool. I love that the lyrics to Pockets are personal yet profound; how the simplicity and sincerity of her video represent her words; the way her vocals are performed with such casual grace, with no interest whatsoever in showing off, like a friend whispering intimate truths in your ear. I am so proud to be considered a true friend, and occasional creative collaborator, to both my adult daughters.

The third verse of Pockets resonated with me deeply when we recorded it several months back, as I was going through something fairly traumatic at the time. It spoke to me; soothed me; healed me; let me know I could ride it out and things would be okay. It was when my youngest grew up and became one of my muses; the life advice turned around and switched directions; I no longer was parent to a child. It’s the reason family and friends are so beautiful and the life cycle is so perfect when you let things occur the way they can and should be. And I hear all of that in Riley’s music.

I hope Pockets has that impact on you as well.

“But I always seem to stumble on pockets of love
Wherever I may roam…”
— Riley Max in Pockets

Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.
— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize

Riley’s older sister Sidney filming one of the final scenes of the Pockets video.

*Look, don’t get me wrong — I still think I’m the most important member of the team. It’s just that I’m not.
**This love must be tempered in your mind by the knowledge that I also love Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
***I’m expecting my art to get even worse, so it’s good that hers is getting even better.
****This can be a rhetorical, even internal question. You don’t actually have to answer it out loud. I mean, you can. I’m not trying to tell you what to do. Well, I’m sort of telling you what to do. Please ignore this footnote and get back to reading the Noizeletter.

The Boss Tells Me We’re Writin’ A Song

Like the last two singles, this video celebrates diversity in its own way, highlighting those among us who make their way in a world that still presents many accessibility obstacles. You’ll see some of those folks in the final jam section at the end. In the video, again directed by our oldest daughter Sidney, you’ll feel the joy and love Sidney has for the video’s subjects, Janette in particular.* Living with their mother has helped shape my daughters into the resilient and accomplished young women they both now are on the East Coast. I chose their role model well.

When Janette first informed me that we were making Some People See, But I Don’t — she had the title chosen and locked in — I went down to the studio and emerged a few days later with a profoundly serious minor-key stadium rock anthem for her to sing her epic words of triumph over. My wife, who has never minced words with me,** took one listen and basically said: “What is this? I’m not looking for a lecture. I want my lyrics draped in a joyfully sugary Scritti Politti dance party.”*** So…

I went back down to the studio, and a few days later presented her with the funky fun foundation of the song you hear today… which she liked much better. I play most of the instruments, but it also features the Grammy-nominated Quartet San Francisco violinist Jeremy Cohen,**** Colorado Jazz Repertory Orchestra founder Art Bouton on tenor sax, me on alto sax, a trombonist and trumpeter filling out our horn section, and my Stanford Recording Arts Workshop student Isaac Moore (son of my childhood bud Kelly) on bass. Janette was right to take it in this direction. It’s slammin’ and expresses what a joy it is to live life with her and see the world from her perspective.

About That Set…

In honor of the upcoming Doctor Noize retro album, we’ve just finished construction on a Retro Room at my in-house production facility Reach Studios. The video for Some People See, But I Don’t is the first to feature this party pad, which used to be the studio’s indoor soccer turf field***** and has references to its former identity all over the room. With 16 ins and outs to the Control Room, double walls for isolation, and impeccable sound treatment, it also serves as our Retro Lounge for anyone recording here — with a fully functioning disco ball, usable wall-mounted lightsabers, vintage tabletop arcade game with 412 of the most beloved 80s games, record player, CD and cassette boombox, plush retro furniture, and a TV/VHS unit with only three movies to choose from: Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi. Happy you are.

I’ll be recording my upcoming big band album The Bad News and my upcoming underwater disco album****** in this room, as well as all strings and horns for all future recordings.

Tune Your Team

We’re also debuting our new corporate and team training workshop Tune Your Team, available for booking as of today. In Janette’s corporate speak…

“Are you looking for an in-person event that sparks creativity and insight about how your team works? Cory and I are bringing together our energy and expertise to facilitate a half day workshop for teams of all shapes and sizes. My expertise in leadership skills assessments and teamwork will provide the foundation for understanding and leveraging the full portfolio of your team’s strengths, while Cory guides and supports your group through the process of writing a song. We’ll customize the level of deep tissue team optimization to your need. You decide whether the song serves an organizational purpose or simply challenges the team to work together and think differently.”
— Janette Cullinan

Our wife-and-husband workshop combines Janette’s Fortune Five corporate leadership and coaching expertise with my production and program-building experience. Janette was a Senior Leader at UnitedHealth Group, is an ICF Associate Certified Coach certified in both Hogan and Clifton Strengths assessments, and is the Principal of Cullinan Coaching. She has a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Education from Stanford, where I earned my Music degree and teach every summer.

I’ve produced songs in songwriting and recording workshops with and for over 75 different groups and organizations from colleges to Carnegie Hall, produced #1 chart hits and songs in major movies, and built and run programs at Pinewood School, Regis University, and Stanford University. I’m Chairman of the Board at the Pikes Peak State College Recording Arts & Technology program, whose curriculum is based on my program at Stanford, and I’ve performed to audiences of thousands nationwide.

Together we create an unforgettable and fun creativity, leadership and team-building experience for your company, organization or group… and you get to go home with your own personalized recording. We’re two people who have inspired each other and our teams, classrooms and audiences for decades. We’d like to do the same for your organization. But we’re also two people who simply like to get to know and spend time with organizations and teams who strive for excellence, leadership and creativity.

Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.

— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize

*Sidney created both closed captions for the deaf and audio description for the blind for this video — you can select either in the settings of the YouTube video. Our family watches movies and TV shows together with audio description on for Mom.
**Janette is my toughest audience and music critic, and always has been, and that’s not just a PR thing I say. Ask our girls. It bugs the sh#t out of me… but it makes me a better artist.
***Look… on the one hand, admittedly this comment really dates her and makes her seem like someone who indeed needs a Retro Lounge. On the other hand, Miles Davis DID record his own version of a Scritti Politti song, thus validating her artistic request as legit to me.
****True story: Jeremy played all the fiddle parts on the original Dukes Of Hazzard TV show. Talk about retro…
*****No, that is not a typo… longtime readers know Reach Studios had an indoor soccer turf field for years, complete with 16 ins and outs to the Control Room to record large ensembles in a crazy creative space. But mostly we used it to have fun between takes.
******If you’ve never heard underwater disco, first of all, shame on you, and second of all, I’ve got you covered.

The Early Buzz*

I was gonna describe it more until a review was published a day ahead of its release:

“Doctor Noize’s “Funk The Planet” arrives with the kind of bold ambition that wants to move bodies, spark imaginations, and slip in a call to care for the world while it’s at it. The song portrays its environmental theme in broad, welcoming strokes… it feels communal in the best sense, like a group of artists rallying around a shared idea and finding a groove muscular enough to hold it. Plenty of songs with messages don’t make an impact. Dr. Noize… has spent years making music that treats young listeners as curious, capable audiences rather than passive recipients. The best part of “Funk The Planet” is its optimism. The song centers on the idea that joyful music can still carry conviction, and Dr. Noize makes a persuasive case for it.”
— Randall Radic, The Riff (Medium’s Premier Music Publication)**

He’s right. That is my central message to artists today. Our culture needs our music to have conviction and purpose. More than ever. Here’s what the song’s acclaimed mixer (and writer/performer of its most catchy lyric and vocal “Oooh… that’s funky…”) says:

“This project is a unicorn where excellence, purpose, and sheer fun intersect. Leave it to Cory to unabashedly attack the heaviest challenges of the world with his musical message brilliantly wrapped in earworms and funny lyrics. I loved every minute working with my crazy friend.”
— 3x Grammy-award winning producer Lonnie Park

Look, I’m not trying to impugn Lonnie’s professional honesty and integrity, but the only accurate word in there is “crazy.” I’d also like to note that Lonnie’s one of the guest lecturers at my Stanford Workshop this summer, although he doesn’t actually know that until he reads this Noizeletter.***

Two Fun Updates

First… I’ve been commissioned by Carnegie Hall and the wonderful Strings Music Festival for an Artist In Residency with the Lullaby Project. From Carnegie: “Each year, the Lullaby Project pairs new and expecting parents with professional artists to write and sing personal lullabies…” Previous Lullaby Project artists have included Natalie Merchant, Dianne Reeves and Catherine Zeta-Jones, so obviously this is a huge step down for them. But hey, I’m up for it.****

Second… This year’s Stanford Recording Arts Workshop, the two-week intensive program at Stanford University I designed, run and teach, sold out faster than ever! The teaching staff met and figured out a way to open up two more slots. One went immediately, so there is literally one final spot left as I write this, and you can register here. I realize I sound like a used car salesman, but it’s true. If you’re interested, grab it now and we’ll see you this summer! In other news, I have a beautiful orange non-exploding 1980 Ford Pinto that needs a home…*****

Final Thoughts…

I hope you’ll take a moment on World Environment Day to think of how you can help shape it. As I’ve previously said, I think we couldn’t hand the planet over to the young soon enough. It’s time for new thinking and methodology. And Funk The Planet’s conceptually related to my last single Diversity. Funk’s video, which The Riff loved, was again conceived and directed by my daughter Sidney. Watching her creation for the first time, with its colorful array of animals and species of plants, I was instantly reminded of what every student of science, nature and the environment knows:

We literally need biodiversity to survive, thrive, and evolve. But we’ve forgotten that as a culture, reframing the concept of diversity as bad instead of something that’s literally necessary for us to exist, thrive, and yes, even compete.

Let’s change that back. With youthful positive energy. We’ll collaborate to compete with the challenges the future brings us. We’ll funk the planet together. Not that other thing the song nudge-nudge-winks-winks we could do if you don’t focus on the words and their meaning too closely and you think we’re sayin’ somethin’ else.

Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.

— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize

*Not a drinking game story. Sorry.
**Read the reviewer’s hilarious Bio at the bottom of the linked review. Dude’s got game.
***Congratulations Professor Park!!! You’re gonna love the fame and salary of academia!
****I’m just a giver like that.
*****I don’t really have a non-exploding 1980 orange Pinto. It’s 70s green and it’s fire.

While I was gone from public life, a podcast I recorded in February as the featured guest was released. I was crazy honest about both deeply hilarious and deeply tragic moments in my life, and told stories I’ve never told before publicly — about being a son, a father, a husband, a teacher, a musician, and trying to find the humanity, gratitude and purpose in it all. Listen here or find it on all major podcast services.

The host, Devon, writes:

“On this episode we have on musician Cory Cullinan, also known as Dr. Noize.

I met up with Cory at his studio and we discussed taking his daughters to the Grammys, his daughters going off to college, coaching his daughters in soccer, and learning how to motivate his kids based on their personalities.

A lot of this conversation is a deeply personal story about Cory’s upbringing. I asked him about what made him do kids music and he shared the story of his childhood. He grew up with a normal happy family life and then his brother got sick and died within 2 years, and a year later his dad died of suicide. Cory opened up to me about how that has guided the rest of his life. From trying to understand his dad’s decision to understanding his brother’s acceptance of illness. By performing for kids he honors his dad and brother before life fell apart.

So this episode has a lot to it. And I’m genuinely grateful for Cory’s trust in sharing his story.”

The childhood story stuff in the podcast starts around 18:30. Meanwhile, while I was away, I built more experiences as a father and husband. Three highlights are below.

Our youngest daughter Riley has become an adept leader as Music Director of her a cappella group, the Harvard Veritones. We traveled to meet up with Sidney for Riley’s show in Cambridge. Nothing in this world is more inspiring to me than brilliant and talented young minds bringing beautiful art into the world to build a more joyous community.** Here’s the only song Riley didn’t conduct that night… because she was the soloist. Hear Miss Independent declare her independence:

Our oldest daughter Sidney is a human generator of positive energy, opportunity and adventure. Riley traveled with us to spend time with Sidney’s incredible Yale School Of Management crew after they returned from two weeks in Bhutan studying the culture, politics and values of the only country in the world with a Ministry Of Happiness. Sidney and her close friend were unexpectedly forced to land in the Middle East during the war for three days. They modeled resilience. Our roles have switched; I am the student and she is the Master.*** She’s exactly the muse I need.

It’s my 31st anniversary today to the woman I need, my first wife Janette.**** We built our two greatest creations, Sidney and Riley, together. She’s still raising me. A strong woman. I am grateful for that. And for my friends from all eras who are there for me whenever I need you. You know who you are. You’re the best. And finally…

Apply to my Stanford Recording Arts Workshop here! My incredible Teaching Assistants this year — two talented women capable of teaching the course on their own whenever I need to hit the sports bar or answer the Bat Signal — are Pikes Peak State College Music Department Chair Shazia Ali and Riley Max. We already have an amazing international ensemble of musicians and creatives coming. You’re next.

Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.

— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize

*I also apologize if you reached out BEFORE the last six weeks and I didn’t respond… working on my digital comms game. Suck at it. Namaste.
**This is also why I love the opportunity I’m given to teach at Stanford each year.
***As it should be.
****Look, it’s been an awfully serious Noizeletter… I had to throw at least one bad joke in here.

Got a phone call from an artist in Beijing, China yesterday. (Friends know I prefer phone calls to emails and texts, and answer them faster.) She’s a fantastic 20-something composer coming to study and collaborate at my Stanford Recording Arts Workshop this summer. I also heard yesterday from a guy with multiple Stanford degrees (one’s not good enough**) who’s coming. These two interactions reminded me that we always have fascinating and diverse people from all over the world collaborating to make a unique album at our annual 2-week all-in Stanford course. It makes my life perspective so much smarterer.*** Registration for the summer course opened here this morning at 12 AM! Amazing artists are coming. You should too.

Speaking of that… I received this text today from Shazia Harshman,**** recent 3-time Stanford Workshop student, trailblazer, newlywed, now colleague, who sent me this:

That’s right, the Recording Arts program we started at Pikes Peak State College in Colorado, based on our Stanford program and buoyed by Shazia’s boundless work ethic and charisma, has 54 active majors less than a year after we launched it. Shazia’s now head of both that program and the entire Music Department, and I’m Chair of the Advisory Board. We’re pictured here at Pikes Peak with my college advisor John Chowning, who just won a lifetime achievement technical Grammy and gave a highly-attended lecture/demo at Pikes I moderated last year as we launched the program.

As I watched events unfolding in my country, with a native government dispensing cruelty in equal measure to both citizens of other countries and its own citizens, it felt half appropriate and half tone-deaf to release my Doctor Noize retrospective album entitled Positive Energy! (The Music Of Doctor Noize) this month. I didn’t want to focus on trying to insert myself into the news cycle with a new release; I wanted to focus on the news cycle as a citizen, a nation, a world, and consider what I can personally do to help steer adults back into a more empathetic and responsible direction.*****

So I’ve rescheduled Positive Energy!’s release for June. I will not reschedule it again, regardless of what is going on around me. I believe in Positive Energy! and its message wholeheartedly, and want to share it with you and the world when I can personally focus on it. Yet, unbelievably, there have still been dozens of articles, interviews and reviews about my music in the last month — you can Google them. One creative periodical created a recipe based on my life and songs. I’m the guest on upcoming episodes of both the Unstoppable Mindset podcast with New York Times bestselling author Michael Hingson and the Imperfect Dads podcast with Devon Neisen, where I told extremely personal stories I’ve never told in public before. And Diversity was a hit:

The above viviPLAY review closed with these words: “Is harmony really about blending in, or is it just the beautiful noise of everyone refusing to be quiet at the exact same time?”

Amen brother. Still, why all the press? I believe it’s because people are yearning for positive purpose. Honesty. Vulnerability. Collaboration. And I believe we should all try to bring some of all of that into the world right now. I could sure use yours.******

Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.
— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize

—————

*The other night I ate a burrito and became a person of enormous flatulence.
**Just one Stanford degree is for LOSERS. Right Jimmy?
***Shut up that’s like totally a word. Like totally.
****Formerly Shazia Ali. Not formerly Muhammad Ali. But definitely a fighter for good.
*****American adults — in and out of leadership positions — are currently behaving, or enabling behavior, in ways they would never accept in their children. Let’s change that.
******So gimme a call!

I long to live in a culture and country where it is responsible for me to send one happy and inspirational Noizeletter a month about my music and teaching.

I do not live in that culture and country anymore.

If you do one thing for me in your life, I don’t need you to listen to my retrospective Doctor Noize album coming out in a month — my life’s work, mind you. I don’t need you to spend any more time listening to my music or reading my hopefully inspirational words about kindness. I don’t need you to give me any awards or trophies for my work. I want you to do that, but I don’t need you to. And more importantly, we don’t need you to.

I need you to devote 90 minutes to reading both my words and the words of smarterer others below, and then to sit, think, and voice your own words in response. And commit to some form of action. Not necessarily to me. To your community.

This Noizeletter does nothing for my career as an artist or teacher, and most of you won’t read it due to its length — in fact, it almost certainly harms the biggest release of my life in one months’ time and will lose me subscribers and fans to my work as a children’s artist. And that is a very small sacrifice for me to pay in a culture that now requires all of us to understand courage and sacrifice are required to preserve and restore democracy, respectability and integrity in our country — and our world — before it is too late for us to respond with accurate knowledge from responsible objective media (which is methodically under attack by our current government). Before we willfully give away the strength required for us to save our beautiful culture.

If you have appreciated my work and my Noizeletter, and are willing to do one thing for me in my life, please set aside time for the 90 minutes or so of reading below. That 90 minutes is, coincidentally, as long as the retrospective Positive Energy! album that I’ll be sending you in a month. If you can do both, do both. But if you only have 90 minutes left to give me, do this instead of listening to my album.

Is 90 minutes a lot of time? In the internet era, it seems like it. In any other era, it’s nothing. But to get a clear sense of what is actually going on — both for our country and for the world — 90 minutes is actually an insufficient speed course. A Cliff’s Notes to open your eyes, mind and heart wide in the time of less than a movie. As usual, it all depends on your perspective.

In the text of the Noizeletter below — the longest Noizeletter I’ll ever write — are several linked articles, opinion pieces and a speech. One opinion piece is by me. The others are by people more influential, and probably wiser, than I am. I encourage you to read them all.

If you find this Noizeletter intrusive, inappropriate, or offensive… unsubscribe is always an option. Checking out of public discourse is always an option. Looking away is always an option. You can read the history of literally any authoritarian regime — and how it got started — to see how that goes and learn that is where we are right now. But that is absolutely a response you may choose in what is currently still a democracy for middle-aged white guys like me and a few other people… even though we might get murdered in broad daylight by government authorities like Alex Pretti was yesterday, which you can see firsthand in multiple videos from Minneapolis linked below if you choose not to look away. If you choose to believe your own eyes, mind and soul instead of the story being fed to you by an authoritarian American regime.

And if you choose to look away now, the Positive Energy children’s musician guy says: You deserve what’s coming to you. What’s coming to us. In fact, you’re making it happen.

A great life is always earned, not given. And we must earn ours now.

Here’s an internal friction I’ll bet many artists and children’s musicians are facing right now: I don’t want the Trump administration’s behavior to overshadow and prevent me from living and expressing my joy of life, or from releasing art that I sincerely hope make the world a better, more empathetic, and more loving place. But I also feel strange and tone-deaf releasing an album called Positive Energy! a month from now without specifically addressing and acknowledging in uncomfortable terms that we are are not living in a culture of positive energy right now, and we have specifically chosen to reelect a regime that enacts cruelty and infuses us all with negative energy. I am aware that regime is methodically destroying both democracy in this country and stability in the world order.

I asked my wife for guidance on how to reconcile this dichotomy. What to do about the disconnect of releasing my life’s work — a celebration of positivity for kids, families and educators — while somehow acknowledging what is actually going on politically in stark and straightforward terms to the detriment of my career’s biggest release. She said:

Just do both.

Imperfect times offer imperfect solutions. Doing both is the combined right thing to do, as best as I can determine, even though they are somewhat contradictory and confusing. And I’m trying, sometimes failing, to do my best. Don’t let this regime of deportations and bombings and mistruths end your life of taking meaningful adventures with your family and watching playoff sports with your friends and releasing your happy life works of art; but don’t pretend it is not our responsibility to also fight back and do more if we have the privilege to engage in the above activities. Especially those of us who have a little megaphone, a little audience. Part of appreciation and celebration and success is owning the gratitude and obligation to speak up and make the world a better place for others too. To at least risk trying.

There’s more on our plates than there used to be as Americans. Much more than we’ve ever had in our lifetimes. We’ve all grown accustomed to living in a world where we could turn on the TV and visit Sesame Street any morning we wanted to in fantasyland, an aspirational neighborhood literally funded and made possible by living in the most wealthy and inspirational democracy in the real world. But that funding has been cut. That aspiration is not only not communicated by our current government, it is killed and mocked by it. Diversity, empathy, objective reporting, higher education, even basic human kindness — everything Sesame Street stood for — is under attack by the Trump administration.

For many of us who are fortunate, this is the first time we’ve had to deal with the danger our communities — like those in Minnesota — are experiencing now. For many others who are less fortunate, and frankly many who are less white or male than I am, the only difference now is that we’re all experiencing it instead of just some of us. It’s an education for the rest of us. Perhaps one that was needed and overdue.

Regardless, we’re now in a situation where, in my opinion, every day we must simultaneously live our lives and dreams and fight back against the most important and dangerous inflection point in our lifetime.

So that’s what I’m doing. Music, writing and art are not the sole solution, but they can help. Here’s a brilliant example:

“Nice is different than good.”
-- James Lapine & Stephen Sondheim in Into The Woods, my favorite musical of all time and a deeply philosophical work about ethics, social standing, power dynamics and groupthink

Moments like this one in history establish whether you’re nice or good... or bad. There’s some of that too, but there’s more cowardice than bad. Rationalization is a form of cover for cowardice, and in times like this, functionally it is the same as being bad: If you enable bad, you are being bad. People who support people who oppress people are behaving badly. Even if you wouldn’t have shot the lady or imprisoned the brown guy.

We’re not good right now as a country -- we’re in the woods looking for people to fight, blame and oppress for our fears and insecurities -- but *you* can be good.

Now is the time. Later is too late for credit, except for from other nice people... who you will not respect when the smoke has cleared and history provides greater clarity of what went on here.

Don’t be nice.

Below, with some context, are the links and articles I hope you’ll explore and respond to, internally and externally. You don’t need to respond to me unless you want to. You need to respond, out loud, to the world. And you need to do it now.

I know that part of my professional identity is as a children's musician. As a summer teacher at Stanford helping people find joy in music. So I apologize for the cognitive dissonance of what I’m sharing next. The times call for it. Here is a detailed expert video analysis of the killing of US citizen and Veterans Affairs ICU Nurse Alex Pretti yesterday by ICE Agents who are wearing masks and dress and behave more like a third-world drug gang than police officers:

Alex Pretti Killing Multi-Angle Video Analysis

Here’s analysis of that killing by acclaimed American historian and Boston College Professor Heather Cox Richardson. You should read it. All of it. And you should subscribe to her Substack, Letters From An American.

History Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s 1/24/26 Post

Here’s the already-legendary, honest and brave speech in in Davos this week by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney about the impact of our decisions and apathy — not just Trump, but every US citizen and shopkeeper who enables Trump — on global stability and world history. A speech that will be referenced in history books. Carney begins his speech in beautiful French — a simple and profound demonstration of multicultural education an intention flying in the face of everything President Trump stands for — but you can fast forward to minute 1:22, which is where he switches to English for the rest of his talk. As you listen to this speech, I encourage you to imagine you — and all of us as citizens — as what he refers to as a “middle power.” What can and should you do with your middle power?

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s World Economic Forum Speech

A final note about this week’s World Economic Forum at Davos: The only leaders who signed on to Trump’s “Board Of Peace” are dictators or leaders of very small countries desperate to appease a United States government that has — in only a few short weeks — openly kidnapped another country’s leader (Venezuela) with our military to gain their oil and threatened military takeover of one of our NATO allies (Greenland, a territory of Denmark). The first breaks international law, and the second opens brazen direct hostility with an organization (NATO) we created with Europe after World War II to make sure it doesn’t happen again. All you have to know about this is that Trump — not the US President — is named as the leader of this “Board Of Peace” for perpetuity; he is charging leaders $1 billion to join the Board (this is not a misprint — it’s a commercial venture); and oppressive dictator Vladimir Putin of Russia, who invaded Ukraine, is on the Board, but no major Western democratic leader has accepted the invitation. Any media that tells you we should pay no attention to the opinions of our other democratic allies and stick to America First is selling you a dangerous instability, and any President who openly allies himself with dictators over democracies is a President who is leading you away from democracy.

While you should not simply get your facts and feels and links from normal schmucks without professional editors like me, normal people like you in normal jobs can give us brave and heartfelt honest takes on the world. As a reader, you do need to insist on fact-checking us citizen blowhards with trained investigative journalism and accountable institutions of higher learning (more on that below). But before we get back to the true professionals, here’s a passionate and profound piece by a Denver musician and “Not Just A Drummer” Michael Jochum that sums up your responsibility in this moment beautifully and nicely for anyone who has the courage, intellect and empathy to do so — and gives you a model for courage and insight of your own even if you’re not a professional professor or journalist:

Michael Jochum’s Hard Truth Post 12 Hours Ago

On that note, here’s my own post and essay a few weeks ago about the killing and character assassination — by our own government — of US citizen Renee Nicole Gould, whose final words to ICE agents, on camera, were: “I’m not mad at you.” The ICE agents’ response was to kill this unarmed woman point blank with a gun and then say, on camera, in the personal cellphone footage the ICE agent himself was taking while he shot her : “Fucking bitch.”

Cory Cullinan’s 1/8/26 Post On Renee Nicole Good

Note this post was reshared by a friend. Many friends, actually. Your influence and your dent don’t have to be national or network-sized. In fact, studies show influence is more profound and effective person-to-person in trusted local or smaller networks. It’s an unfortunate but true aspect of human nature, monetized to dangerous and corrosive advantage by social media companies that make money off your engagement — our addiction — to their algorithmic manipulations and “services.” But you can steal some of the destructive, predatory and commercial aspects of currently-constructed corporate social media back by insisting on sharing the stories of people like Renee Nicole Gould. The videos of ICE Agents’ infringements of your human rights. Speeches like Carney’s at Davos.

Posts like these from real people can inspire give strength to other real people to speak up and organize into protests. You’re a real person. But how do we stay educated in an increasingly challenging culture and world, and make sure we don’t fall into the trap of intentional misinformation and self-centeredness? How do you personally stay on top of reality and news — and act with integrity — without curated reading lists or Substack opinion posts by people like me?

One… You should not simply trust me, anyone else, or any one group. You should never trust a source — person, government or media outlet — that implies it’s your only accurate or reliable source of news, information and perspective. That’s a huge red flag. We all get things wrong. You should diversify your information sources and friend groups, and you should hold yourself accountable for a life that is curious about and empathetic to our diverse American community more than your own comfort and preservation.

Two… You should insist on supporting and protecting real investigative journalism and real institutions of research and learning. Note that both my first two are about educating yourself and others. About valuing diverse knowledge and human growth. Not just financial growth. Human growth, which leads to curiosity, which leads to a capacity to learn and connect and empathize and compromise.

And three, you need to take action — speaking out, protesting, and loving but holding your fellow human beings accountable. Believing in them instead of fearing and hating them. It’s energizing. It creates community. Community — and not government — creates democracy.

Here’s the thing: You’ll do #3 organically if you do #1 and #2.

One of the reasons so many Americans choose to be willfully uninformed is that our objective and investigative media is under extreme attack and takeover by government, wealthy and powerful corporate forces — a time-tested precursor to authoritarian regimes throughout history. Here’s one article on a 60 Minutes segment that was recently pulled by pressure and influence from the Trump administration.

CNN Report On December’s Pulled 60 Minutes Segment

If you haven’t heard about this, which was widely reported at NPR, the New York Times, Substack, and even Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch’s Washington Post — or you’re unaware of many similar recent stories of press censorship and attacks on colleges and news organizations with time-honored editorial standards — please proactively change your behavior patterns and choose to read objective commercial investigative news with time-honored editorial standards (there still is some), choose to support local news that is dangerously dying or being gobbled up by corporate media, and choose to support public, non-profit, and educational sources of research and information, instead of getting your news solely from corporate-owned social media or media getting rich on telling you the narrative they know you like to hear.

“These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless.”
— Sharyn Alfonsi of 60 Minutes

Multiply the pressure on American media’s most storied news institution 60 Minutes by the same pressure at even smaller media outlets everywhere, which is creating an exponential increase in media caving, and you will quickly understand that the window of opportunity to return our country to an actual state of education, enlightenment and democracy — which, for all you “the old days were the best days” conservatives out there, is exactly what the Founding Fathers primarily wrote about and strove for in the founding of our country and its Constitution — is rapidly closing.

More than anything, our founders believed a concentration of power was dangerous, because human nature is corrupted by power. You do not need to study history to know this. Observe our billionaire tech bros who once acted like geniuses but now whine like toddlers after accumulating way too much power and wealth. Your regional soccer club and the soft corruption of that coach who loves how much everyone fears and sucks up to him. Your music industry board that has the same people on it for a decade despite their supposed dedication to diversity, inclusion and term limits. “It’s not bias ‘cause we’re friends and we’re great” is almost impossible to resist, especially when the gravy train seems pretty harmless to you and everyone in your camp says you’re one of the good guys.

So, most of all, our founders insisted on a separation of powers unlike anything the world had seen before; a President with more checks on power than any country had ever installed; power in your hands to debate and come to consensus on. Use the web for good: Google the story about George Washington voluntarily insisting that he only had two terms as President when term limits did not yet exist, despite the fact that he could easily have won a third, and deliberately orchestrated a formal, public ceremony to resign his military commission on December 23, 1783. A far cry from our modern President crying for trophies and whining when he doesn’t get ‘em, and creating a “Board Of Peace” with no peaceful members where he’s in charge for life.

George Washington didn’t want to be good. He wanted to be great. The best way to be great is to assume you’re just good. At best. And the only way to understand you’re good but not great — a work in progress — is to actually seek the humility of real education, real facts, reality, and real diversity of opinion. To practice real restraint in the accumulation of your power and wealth. Anyone who doesn’t do that risks ending up like President Trump, who was born with a gazillion dollar spoon in his mouth and decided he had actually made that spoon. A man who has gathered only sycophants around him to reinforce this fantasy as long as it will generate money or power for them and/or keep them out of prison.

Don’t be that person in your own little world. Don’t seek comfort. Don’t seek too much validation. Seek what our flawed founding fathers sought for you: Enlightenment.

You’re not stupid enough to believe objective reality is false — you only believe it if you want to believe it. I do not accept the narrative from anyone in this country that you are unintentionally ignorant and therefore innocent — you were gifted this democracy by history’s bravest freedom fighters in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War 2, the civil rights warriors of the 1960s who were assassinated for their courage. It has been preserved by the free press and the study of history, culture, arts and sciences made possible by the development of the finest higher education system in human history. In that context, your ignorance is either a choice to live a life of privilege and casual cruelty and/or passively allow others to do the damage you are too cowardly to prevent. Many people worked hard and even sacrificed their lives to build a society you are destroying with your enabling apathy now. Even at the seams, in places that seemingly don’t matter.

They matter. You matter. Don’t do cowardice and corruption because everybody does it. Everybody doesn’t. Let’s all demonstrate that.

And finally: Note that the government, billionaire and corporate forces who are trying to bully and silence segments like the above 60 Minutes segment for supposed “lack of depth and facts” are the same forces who insist we should not have any fact-checking or editorial editing on places like Facebook or X, where a majority of Americans report they receive all of their news. Please pause for a moment and examine the disconnect between those two seemingly contradictory positions, until you realize there’s no disconnect at all: They simply want the least-researched and most-powerfully promoted “stories” that help them go rich to go viral.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and X CEO Elon Musk are both worth hundreds of billions of dollars. That’s enough to fix our entire public education system. To cure countless diseases worldwide. To stave off global hunger. According to a recent investigative report bravely published by the New York Times Editorial Board, President Trump and his family have used the Presidency to personally make 1.4 billion dollars in the first year of his second term, breaking all ethical norms by all previous Republican and Democratic Presidents.

Is that for you? Is that who you wanna be? Is that what you’d do if you were President? If you had hundreds of billions of dollars? Do you think someone like Elon Musk should be able to buy a Presidency by giving over $250 million dollars to Trump’s second campaign? (That actually happened. How’d that go for Elon? It’s a textbook example of the danger of supporting an authoritarian.) If you’re conservative, would you like it if right-wing lightning rod George Soros (who is worth way less than Musk and Zuck, BTW, with an estimated net worth of around $7.5 billion) bought a Gavin Newsom Presidency by investing over $250 million into buying your vote?

If not, change it. Get informed. Get involved. Be part of a diverse community instead of a monochrome group singing a single song. Risk your own status. Your own album sales. Challenge your own assumptions. Experience the discomfort of enlightenment. It is still possible. It’s not too late.

I will close with an example of hope, and a perfect model for what we can do: The censored 60 Minutes story above aired last Sunday, a month after it was squelched, after extreme pressure and outcry from media and Americans nationwide. The power that is being taken from you can only be taken from you if you are willing to give it away.

I wish you all the hard work — us all the hard work — in saving this big, beautiful world, in preserving our amazing American experiment in democracy, opportunity, and intellectual progress of all kinds. For my children, for your children, and for all the children Doctor Noize has had the privilege of making music and creative experiences for over the years.

“Good night, and good luck.”

— Journalist Edward R. Murrow, known for his integrity and powerful commentary against McCarthyism & wartime reporting, in his nightly national send-off

We will all meet this moment in a culture and world flirting more than ever in my lifetime with anti-intellectualism and authoritarianism in our own way; after much reflection, I’m convinced that the way I want to meet this moment is through deeper and more honest connections with fellow dreamers who understand the significance of everything we say and do right now. You are the brave people who will be changemakers and disruptors to the current dangerous tides; the people who will inspire others to keep our world meaningful, empathetic, and kind.*** I am far less interested in reaching a larger, more casual audience as an artist, writer and human than I used to be; and I’m at a fortunate stage of my career where I don’t need more fans and venues. I just need you. If you’re a small group, great; a large group, greater.

So I’m thrilled to kick off the new year and this new platform with…

LONE TREE, CO (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Jan. 19, 2026) — Kids! Parents! Teachers! It’s time to celebrate the love for diverse people and ideas that Martin Luther King, Jr. represented with the colorful collaboration DIVERSITY from three beloved national family artists across the country — the Alphabet Rockers from the West Coast (Oakland, CA); Doctor Noize from the Midwest Mountains (Lone Tree, CO); and Vivian Fang Liu from the East Coast (New York, NY) — in a video directed by Sidney Cullinan.

“This song will remind you exactly why you continue to quest to understand another person’s lived experience, and why you want to include your children in a journey of empathy and community building. This is fundamental to all of us surviving this time in our national history.”
— Kaitlin McGaw of Alphabet Rockers

Fueled by our shared passion for and support of diversity of all kinds, and focusing our mutual love of collaboration toward high purpose and production values, as artists we felt it was important to join together and kick off this calendar year with a joyous celebration of something our culture sometimes forgets in these times: diversity is what makes all of us smarter and stronger. Let’s say it out loud and proud. Heck, let’s even sing it.****

“This song gives me deep roller skating through your neighborhood on a sunny day waving at the folks as you roll by vibes. We can all use a lil bit of that in our lives right about now.”
— Tommy Soulati Shepherd of Alphabet Rockers

Diversity was, indeed, lovingly created by the three collaborating artists as a homage to the vintage song and video style of every kid’s favorite neighborhood: Sesame Street. Each artist has our own verse, in our own musical style and genre,***** taking listeners on a journey musically that literally embodies what the song is about. Following a bridge of multicultural instrumentation, the final section, joyously sung by all, is a hybrid rocking musical jam fusing all the previous styles into a delicious melting pot of music and harmony. And Sidney Cullinan’s video, fusing live action and animation of colorful characters into a timeless and simple message, is expertly crafted to show that the synchronicity and synthesis of diverse elements creates a greater whole.

“It’s time — past time — for artists and educators everywhere to speak up and represent their values out loud, regardless of the career consequences. I’m deeply inspired to be collaborating with artists of such creativity, courage and character on this song. But most of all… it was fun.”
— Doctor Noize

Grammy®- and Emmy-winning duo Alphabet Rockers are one of the most influential family music acts of our time who lead with love. As chart-topping recording artist and award-winning teacher Doctor Noize, I have known and admired the Alphabet Rockers for almost two decades. I co-produced virtuosic singer and pianist Vivian Fang Liu’s acclaimed 2023 album Accents Of Love. Sidney Cullinan has directed multiple videos by Grammy winners and designed the most successful social media campaign in the history of The Nature Conservancy.

“We can’t just hope for a better world — we have to be BRAVE, TAKE ACTION, and SING it into being. Working with Kaitlin, Tommy, Doctor Noize, and Sidney feels like joining a big family of positive fighters. That’s the heart of Diversity: warm, hopeful, joyful, and moving forward TOGETHER.”
— Vivian Fang Liu

All the artists involved recognize this song celebrates a word that’s being removed from artists’, educators’ and venues’ websites and curricula everywhere. That’s one of the reasons we feel it’s important to reclaim the natural positivity and joy of the word, its meaning, and its value today — from cultural diversity to biodiversity — on a national holiday that speaks to it. We hope Dr. King would be proud. And because we’re all teaching artists who love and feel a commitment to parents, educators and the classroom, Diversity is being released with a music video expanding on the song’s concepts for students, teachers, and curiosity seekers everywhere.

“When I was growing up, the topic of this song was the subject of half the things I watched on Sesame Street. I don’t find this subject controversial at all.”
— Director Sidney Cullinan

So join the Alphabet Rockers, me, Vivian Fang Liu and Sidney Cullinan to celebrate the color and collaboration we can all bring to this world… together. Share it with friends and family. Diversity is now available at all major digital retailers and YouTube. For all ages, and especially suitable for preschool and elementary school children and the adults who belong to them. The musical artists and director are available for interviews individually or together, but be warned: If it’s a group interview, it’s gonna be a party.******

Running time: 4 minutes 1 second

For PR and interview inquiries, contact Kershona Mayo at the MORA / MAY Music PR Agency. For more information on this song and the artists, visit…

www.alphabetrockers.com
www.doctornoize.com
www.vivianfangliu.com
www.sidneycullinanfilm.weebly.com

*Totally a word.
**Totally an exaggeration. It’s only 2,000%.
***In short, you’re woke wosers.
****I totally said “Heck” instead of somethin’ else ‘cause this is an all-ages release. Golly!
*****My genre is “bad music.”
******And let’s be honest: Not trying to show off, but I look hot in pink.

So, fittingly, my last email Noizeletter is about loss. And rebirth. I’ve been thinking about the holidays in a new way the past few years, with both the experience and understanding that holidays are actually hard for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. I lost my mom a few years ago after spending several years looking after her with Alzheimer’s, to the point I was only working part-time. I’m the last member of my childhood nuclear family — my brother and father were both long gone — and as I organized Mom’s memorial and sold my childhood home, I realized… with her loss, I also literally lost anyone at all to talk to firsthand about anything that happened in our family in that house for all those years. With the loss of the house, I lost any tactile or environmental reference to those years as well. I realized my memory of it all is hazy, getting hazier… and there is no remedy. None at all. It’s just a loss.

It was unexpectedly brutal. To be honest, I haven’t fully recovered or figured out how to deal with all of it. And I’m not sure I ever will. Most likely, I’ll always live with a sense of loss. Most likely, you feel this too. Especially at the holidays. Mom had legendary singing family Christmas parties. People in town still talk to me about them. Those parties are gone. The piano is no longer in that room. Learning how to live with failure is always more useful than learning how to live with success. I’m creating various works of art in various formats to explore all of the above and work through it. Always will be.

Loss, from my Soundtracks album, is one of my most personal pieces.

And then I realized… I’ve written an entire piano sonata about this. I went back and listened to it after many years. Learned to play it again on piano. Very cathartic, in a way only music can be. The Loss Sonata was put together in memory of my father, and comes in three movements: Memories Fade, Loss, and Here’s To Life. Emotionally and intellectually, I am somewhere in between movements 2 and 3 right now. An internal struggle that I won’t fully win, but will live through, and colors my life experience.

The Loss Sonata was actually adapted from a film score I was hired to write years ago for the great documentary filmmaker Kristen Nutile’s brilliant film, Loss — a personal recounting of her father’s death when she was in her teens. It’s the most personally affecting soundtrack I’ve ever written. My father also died in my teens, and he looked strikingly similar to the subject of this film. As I watched and composed for weeks, in many ways I felt I was writing this music for my own father and experience. Honestly, by the end of the process I felt pretty screwed up emotionally, full of anxiety from reliving something I probably had not fully processed, and I haven’t done a film score since.

But man… this solo piano sonata expresses all of that. And it helped me through the next similar round decades later, allowing me to feel the same things while giving me the musical support and catharsis to not fall as deep into the trauma. I performed Lossin a series of Cory Cullinan & Riley Max concerts we played the summer after Mom/Grandma died. The house would go silent. People related. We connected through music without lyrics.

The final movement of the sonata, Here’s To Life, is one of the most joyously exuberant things I’ve ever written — and they are indeed written to mourn and celebrate the same thing. I’ve learned over the years this is the best way to handle failure.

So this final email Noizeletter — for now, and maybe forever — is dedicated to all of you who feel like you should be nothing but happy over the holidays. You shouldn’t. You can actually have more mixed, even melancholy, feelings about them. That’s life. You are not alone. I feel it too. I hope Loss and Here’s To Life — with all their hard-wrought isolation, loneliness, beauty and rebirth — are cathartic for you as well.

Here’s To Life, linked above, is the final movement of the Loss Sonata.

Rebirth

So I’d like to close this year, and the email iteration of this Noizeletter, with a story of rebirth that was only possible because of the loss of my mother and our house detailed above. It’s one of my favorite stories of the year, and received some incredibly emotional responses from people all over when I posted it on social media earlier this year. Here it is:

A few years ago, my childhood home in California was bought by a man and his family from a country that is in the news a lot now — Iran — and for difficult things. An immigrant family liven the American Dream. I sold him our house but never met him or even knew who he was — my real estate agent handled all that, as is the norm.

Last summer, when I taught at Stanford, our daily took a walk in my old neighborhood. A nostalgic but also bittersweet journey. I still know many of our wonderful neighbors there. But I didn’t know who lived in my family’s home of 49 years. We were walking the neighborhood, and a man drove up into our old driveway. He got out of the car and took the garbage out. As he did, he noticed this family — our family — briefly watching him. We looked different than him, and we were strangers. And he said hello.

I told him: “Hello. You don’t know me, but I sold you this house. I hope you have a wonderful life there.” To our surprise, he immediately and graciously invited us inside to meet his family, have a nostalgic moment, and see the changes they’d made in the home and yard. I immediately thought: ‘That is not something most Americans I know would do.’ But this man did it, generously, without hesitation. He invited strangers into his home to meet his young child.

We met his brilliant wife, who’s from another country in the news a lot now for challenging reasons: Ukraine. Their delightful child. They told us a bit about their history, their dreams, why they had chosen our city and our home. We actually had many things in common. They had updated my childhood home inside from the 1970s look my parents had built (we bought it in 1972), but those updates were far from complete, and they had a years-long plan to update it as finances allowed. I told him this was exactly the long journey my wife and I had taken with our Colorado home, our first home with a yard, budgeting and building the back yard and recording studio and things to complete our dream home over decades as we could afford it.

I am grateful to this man for giving me one last wonderful family experience in the home I grew up in, and even more grateful to him for trusting us enough to give us a glimpse into *his* family life they are building there. I’m getting a little misty-eyed about it just reliving it writing this, in hopes of etching it into my memory forever. I told him I am very happy — and that my mother would be very happy — that a nice young family living the American Dream is building a new life there. In essence, that the home is doing the same for others as it did for us. I have actually run into this man and said hi to him at the nearby Safeway since then when I was in town. I know his name; but more importantly, I know that he is kind of spirit and building new dreams and adventures in the home where my brother and I did the same.

There is a lesson there, for all of us, right now. I’m not sure what it is, and I’m not sure how to right it, but it’s there for us.

Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.**

— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize

*You will all get notifications of my new Substack whatever-it-is-they-call-it-over-there, and that is totally a term.

**And thank you for reading my email Noizeletter over the past few years.

Behind the scenes of my dual life as an artist (Cory Cullinan and Doctor Noize), I run and teach Stanford University’s Recording Arts Workshop each year, I’m Chairman of the Board of the Pikes Peak State College Recording Arts & Technology Program, and I give several Artist-In-Residencies and Keynotes each year.

People ask why I still teach when at this point I could just be an artist. My answers: (1) I like to keep learning to create well, and we all learn better around students and great learning institutions; (2) I love being a part of communities dedicated to excellence, self-improvement and group support systems; and (3) honestly it’s just fun.**

“I have recognized the impact that you’ve made on my growth as a musician over these past years (first online in 2023 and in person the following two years). I particularly resonate with your system of collaboration in the class, encouraging my peers and me to use the two weeks to make connections and learn from each other.”

—Recording Artist Henry Bobbitt

This email came from an incredible young composer and producer who’s made the Stanford Recording Arts Workshop better as part of our ensemble three years in a row! 2025’s talented class matched the 2024 class by producing a double album in two weeks. Once again, the group ranged from college professors and musicians at large to graduate students, college students and high school students, all with one thing in common: they’re exceptional musicians who came to learn and collaborate together. Another diverse group bonded for life. Click on the cover below to hear their album!

Thankful For My Teachers

The album above features incredible avant-garde pieces by composers from multiple continents (Wen-Ching Wang, Nahyun Kim, Yu-Chieng Huang); singles from the upcoming albums of two artists I produce (Riley Max and Levi Randolph); great pop/rock/fusion/rap songs (Nati Grinkrug, Chad Dyer, Isaac Moore, April McGuire, Amity Wu, Sidney Cullinan); amazing EDM/soundtrack music (Ishir Ayyagari, Henry Bobbit, Yeung Liu); and stunning instrumentals (Jacob Moore and the group title track). All completed together, all opening our minds and ears (including mine) to more diversity.***

I’m also the Chairman of the Board**** of the Recording Arts & Technology Program at Pikes Peak State College. Shazia Ali, the incredible Music Dept. Head there, attended my Stanford Recording Arts Workshop for two years and based her program on our program there. We launched the Pikes Peak Recording Arts & Technology Major this year and already have almost 40 students Majoring in it. The last college I taught at couldn’t even get 10 kids to enroll as Music majors in all specialities combined. Shazia’s a force of nature making a difference in her community and world, and the kind of person and program I want to dedicate my time and expertise to.

I was invited to give a Keynote Address to the Stanford University Women’s Club last month, and learned as much from the experience as they did. Before accepting, I asked one of the leaders of the group, Sarita Skidmore: “Uh… Why would you want ME to speak to your illustrious group?” She had some great ideas and insights into why my commitment to a diverse range of both music and teaching might be valuable for other leaders, teachers and artists to hear. So I created a very personal keynote called…

THE POWER OF MUSIC & LEARNING

And how their synthesis drives internal & external growth & community

The talk goes through the what and why of my art and teaching as both Doctor Noize and Cory Cullinan, the story (told through both words and snippets of my music) of how music and learning saved me and taught me the value of community in a traumatic time during my teens, and how the combination of the two is an unstoppable positive force for all. I also gave a strong plea to artists, academics and leaders to awaken their sense of social responsibility and sacrifice in these pivotal cultural times. One kind attendee took the time to mail me this handwritten letter soon after, literally living my point:

“Thank you for a wonderful hour learning about music, life and values. We are grateful. You helped me recognized that, yes, I need to take action and not watch by the sidelines.”

This once again reminded me that we all have more to share from our experience than we think we do. I’d be delighted to have the opportunity to share this Keynote and discussion with your organization. Or come to Stanford to study with me and my annual ensemble for two weeks this summer, or Pikes Peak to study with Shazia’s crew all year.

We Learn To Create

As if to emphasize these life reminders, my new single 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 A Song has received over 88,000 video views,***** scores of playlist adds, interview requests soon to be published, and dozens of truly thoughtful reviews in its first month. Most reviews are indeed emphasizing the joyful combination of music, teaching and community the song represents. I’m deeply grateful to all who’ve listened, watched, considered, and drawn attention to it. Here’s the end of a review by Jyla Music that’s quite profound:

Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.

— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize

*My only disappointment in the weekend was that Messi didn’t say in his postgame interview that he heard that guy who played soccer at Stanford for like two seconds came to his game and he was like totally psyched about that.

**It also arguably keeps me from being an old fart.

***In an extraordinary gesture of tolerance, we allowed Nati to TA even though he goes to Cal.

****Not to be confused with Sinatra. Frank to his friends.

*****You could make this 89,000 views if you watched it individually on 1,000 different computers. Think about it.

“That was an auditorium of pure joy.”

—Colorado Jazz Repertory Orchestra Founder Art Bouton

(After a Doctor Noize & Lone Tree Symphony Show)

I’m starting a tradition of releasing a new single and video each birthday showing gratitude to the many people, places and things* who’ve gifted me my life. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 A Song is the joyous new Doctor Noize music video by my favorite director. Sidney’s music video is a love letter to the audiences and performers in my symphony shows and recordings from Europe to California over the years. It would give us a smile if you spent three minutes of your time on my birthday soaking in its big warm fuzzy feels and letting us give you a smile back:

Happiness Has Heft

When I told Sidney I was going to release this warm and cozy song about songs — one of my most popular singalongs in concerts — as a single, and I had footage from 15+ years of shows and recordings of it with orchestras all over, she instantly said: “I know what that video should be about.”

She said it should be about the reason I’ve always told her I still go on the road to perform: Because everywhere I go, I find a community that opens its arms to me for the moment and lets me be a part of it instead of an alien visitor to it. This gives me hope in humankind and culture, despite anything else going on. As much as I do onstage, the biggest beneficiary of these shows — intellectually, emotionally — is me. The audience gives even more than I do.

So while the song is about songs — a catchy little peek behind the scenes of the songwriting process — the video is about much more. Sidney’s simple story concept (which we returned to an empty concert hall to film additional scenes for at her insistence) gives it a totally new level of meaning and emotional heft. Also, I just wrote the word heft.**

The hunger for happiness and community is resonating. We’ve already learned about a diverse slate of reviews and interviews coming in for this release, from a prominent magazine known for interviewing authorities like Venus Williams, Mark Cuban and Chris Evans to deliciously eccentric ones like a chef influencer creating a recipe for a dish based on the comforting color and sound of 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 A Song. Together we can creatively brighten this world.

For those of you scared and sad about your kids growing up: It’s true, it’s melancholy missing those cute little ones who thought you were the expert in all things. But it’s also amazing to see them become the expert and create worlds of their own. A better world that we need. There’s beauty in the growing up process.

Credit Where Credit’s Due

While the original version of 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 A Song is on my Doctor Noize album Phineas McBoof Crashes The Symphony, this truncated version is the first vintage single from my upcoming Positive Energy! (The Music Of Doctor Noize) retrospective album. Its first brand new song single will be released in January, and the album itself will be released in February. That’s a little later than I initially said. Musicians…***

The full credits for 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 A Song are at the YouTube link above! Particular thanks to Kyle Pickett, who conducted performances in the video from Juneau, Alaska to Springfield, Missouri and truly helped create these shows; and George Mitsuoka, my incredibly kind and brilliant friend who filmed everywhere from Prague to Parker, CO.

We hope this video is a little gift to your heart today.****

Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.

— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize

*Look, in other words, I really like nouns.

**See if you can define the word “heft” out loud in five seconds or less. I couldn’t, yet I know exactly when to use the word for maximum… heft. As my Doctor Noize “Grammaropolis” and “Punctuate This!” albums attest to, words are so awesome.

***Can’t keep a schedule with ‘em. Can’t hear meaningful music without ‘em.

****I am accepting virtual hugs on my birthday but no Bitcoin Ferraris please.*****

*****That is not a thing but maybe one of you should look into making it a thing.

High School Teacher Schools Us

I see so many artists, educators and institutions treading carefully right now I must address it again, by way of an inspiring music and education story…

Tremendous admiration for my former college student Ben Hizer, the spectacular young Music Director at Mountain Vista High School in my own kids’ former public school district. I was thrilled to be Guest Clinician for his choirs this month (which made me fondly remember my own high school choir director days) and attended their concert last night, pictured here with two more of my amazing former college students Maddie Parker and Alyza Alires-Bates, who is also already teaching in schools.

Ben’s a charismatic conductor who allowed students to give the piece intros instead of himself, which were often quite personal. He boldly programmed a diverse and progressive group of pieces that clearly meant a lot to his students and challenged the audience in attendance with the kind of messaging established pros and educators everywhere are not having the courage to program and say out loud in these times. To my fellow artists and educators, many of whom are scaling down their shows, releases, websites and discourse so as not to use language that will reduce their professional opportunities in the current political climate:

If a young man just starting his career who needs the job can stand up in public and support the values he and his students need more than ever in this time… perhaps those of us even-more-established arts professionals and educators could sacrifice more gigs and Grammys to do the right thing loud and proud too. The time for tepidness is past. It’s not a partisan statement to say that curtailing free speech, sending national troops to “go to war” with our own citizens in cities whose crime has decreased in recent years, jailing people without proper procedure, openly targeting non-whites, and endorsing plenary power for the President is government enacting authoritarian measures. I suspect most of you know this but are trying to keep music, education and politics separate.

They’re not separate. Schools, songs, organizations and venues are being dumbed down unless we step up. History sees you not stepping up. My fellow artists and educators:

If you have the time and resources to personally contact hundreds or thousands of your closest internet friends to promote your Grammy release; prepare lesson plans as a new or tenured teacher; travel to arts and education networking events; update your website to remove canceled empathetic words and values; attend monthly Recording Academy meetings to build your career and community; weather the storm as an institution with a large endowment… then you have the time and resources to use your powerful megaphone now to say, loudly and clearly, what you know is going on and really matters.

Even if it loses you gigs. Trophies. Jobs. Teaching opportunities. Money. We do not deserve the freedoms those who came before us secured if we tend to our own personal gardens now. If you’re tending to both your community and your personal garden with equal purpose, great. Keep it up. If not, today’s a good day to reflect and rebalance. I know it’s not your fault. But it is your responsibility.

Corporate America and the tech and media giants aren’t gonna step up. Their excuse is the same one they always have: Their job is to make money for their stakeholders. We’re artists and educators. We’re not supposed to make a lot of money. We’re supposed to be the soul of the country. I’ve lost and will lose opportunities, Noizeletter subscribers, and more for saying these things, over and over again, in and out of my art, out loud. And that’s okay. Ask yourself:

In 20 years, which activity will you be most proud of doing this year?

My former college student and his high school choir kids just performed a song about trans rights in front of an audience of teens and adults in conservative Douglas County, CO. The audience was there to support their kids and their friends, and they all clapped, even those who are uncomfortable with the subject matter. All you have to do is have the courage. Curtailing of free speech and authoritarianism only happen with compliance from the community. Silence is complicity. It’s not time to look after yourself. It’s time to look after all of us.*

Stanford Show

On that note… I’m thrilled to say that I’m one of the featured composers at Stanford University’s Transitions electronic music concert this Saturday night at 7:30 PM, and will be there in person (in my boot) to introduce my piece and talk a little about it. A multigenerational, multimedia collaboration with my daughters, our piece is about all the things I wrote about above. I was going to perform with my full live performance rig doing my avant-garde audience-interaction looping thing… until I ruptured my calf playing soccer last week.** I’d love to see you Saturday at Stanford to experience many composers’ wonderful work and discuss things that matter.

Rhythm Of Asia

I produced and played several instruments on Rhythm Of Asia for Patrick Adams and Vivian Fang Liu for Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month. It’s a catchy song and sentiment submitted in the Best Global Music Performance category of the Grammys. I tell you this now, a week after Grammy voting started when many have already voted, to demonstrate just how seriously I take Grammy campaigns these days, which is something you already know if you saw my Super Pro Grammy Campaign with The Mic Doctors last year. So check out Rhythm Of Asia and vote for it 500 times if you’re a Recording Academy member. I think that’s like totally legal, and it’s essential you validate my musicianship*** with a golden trophy for me as a fully grown man.

Busted-Foot Filosofizing

Storytime for the philosophers out there. Last week I went back to doing something I love and am good at — playing soccer — for the first time in years. Scored a goal in the tenth minute. YAY. Felt like I was back home. Heard and felt a painful pop in the twelfth minute. UH OH. As I lay in extreme pain on the ground and looked up at the beautiful sky and green grass, I had a funny feeling: I was really, really grateful for all the days nothin’ bad pops. In my pain I felt lucky.

I wasn’t. Went to the doctor. She told me, with 100% certainty, that I tore my Achilles. Major surgery and 6-9 months of grueling rehab. Gave me a shot in my butt for the extreme pain.**** I was bummed, but again, bizarrely, I felt mostly acceptance and gratitude. More at peace than I had for a while. All the stupid stuff I fuss about every day melted away and I just thought: Damn, the days are good when I don’t tear my Achilles. Gonna remember that. It was the same philosophical experience I had after experiencing the death of half my immediate family in my teens.

The next day, I arrived at the medical facility expecting to be rolled into surgery. And a hilarious thing happened: I don’t have a torn Achilles. The doctor was wrong. Turns out I tore another muscle in my leg that will heal itself without surgery, keep me in a boot for 3 weeks, and have me back doing whatever I want in 6 weeks. So I was right: I amlucky. But I hadn’t been focused on that of late — the world is such a dark place right now — until something personally really bad happened. Made me see the good more. So that bad thing was… good.

I’m writing this in my boot. Honestly grateful for it. Sometimes breaking something important in your life — or even just taking something away for a while — is just what the doctor ordered to get you to realize and appreciate what you had. To fight for what you’ve unintentionally become entitled to. Powerful forces are trying to take a lot away from us right now. So my challenge to you — which incidentally is also my challenge to me — is this:

Don’t forget to appreciate the good things in your life. Every day. There are a lot of them. But don’t get so comfortable that you feel fine sitting on the sidelines in the storm. The storm will find you eventually. Stand up, speak out, and fight for everyone to keep the truly good things. In my life experience, bad things can be essential to keeping your head on straight if you’re brave. Bad things will happen. They’re happening right now. Get your positive mindset in the game. And go make the world you live in.

Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.

— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize

*A huge shout-out to Harvard for leading the fight. A huge “Show me more!” to several other schools including my alma mater.

**Totally worth it for the goal I scored, BTW. ‘Twas a beauty.

***And/or validate my ability to place many people who all have extensive yet non-concentric Grammy networks on my team as essential members of the production. I do apologize for not personally reaching out to my 3,712 Close Personal Friends in the music industry in the last three months to check up on your lives and casually tell you about my release.

****You’re welcome for that descriptive detail.

But watching 70-something violinist Dennis Ferrigno stride into my studio straight from cancer rehab to wield his beloved fiddle for the first time since his illness and close out his grandson’s track with passion and gravitas before announcing he had no energy to proceed after his scintillating second take… is a musical moment I’ll carry with me for a long time. Those of us in the Control Room were speechless and teary-eyed.

Mostly, it’s a great recording and video. A little bit folk, little bit country, little bit Americana,** gripping emotional story, great performances. Check it out and tell me this 2025 Stanford Recording Arts Workshop student of mine ain’t goin’ places.

The Students Become The Masters

I produced Levi’s first record a few years ago when he was in high school. Now a college drama student in New York and my Recording Arts student at Stanford, he barely needs me anymore.**** I provided the studio, team and environment at Reach Studios in Colorado, checked in every once in a while while Riley Max honestly did most of the real producer tasks, and gave a big assist toward the end during mixing. I started the mastering, but didn’t finish it; mastering was completed by my students and Teaching Assistants at the Stanford Recording Arts Workshop. Nothing makes me prouder than becoming the least essential member of the chain with my students and young artists.

The combination of youth and professionalism on this single and video is pretty astounding. And inspiring. The drummer, 16-year-old high school student Evan Haynes from Colorado, is such an artful musician, person and collaborator that Riley and I both hired him back weeks later to play on our own professional recordings. He’s on my next single. These sessions at Reach were his first pro recording gigs. You can tell Levi’s a drama student; his video’s brilliantly conceived, with real but understated drama.

The Closer’s Storied Fiddle

But let’s close with The Closer*****: An era ago, the family of a fallen American World War 2 soldier brought Dennis Ferrigno a severely damaged violin the veteran had played with great joy before the war and left behind in his garage. Dennis rehabilitated it for thousands of dollars at his own expense, played it, and to his delight its warm tone soared. He had it appraised, and the instrument was worth almost ten times what he’d put into it. He offered it back to the family, but they insisted he keep it and play it. Levi’s Grandpa told us: “When I play it, every so often I think of the man who gave his life for our country, and I hear him singing in Heaven.”

In Levi’s words:

“Throughout my life, my grandfather has been a guiding light in everything I do. The way he approaches life, with determination, precision, and intelligence, has always been an example for how I try to live. He started teaching me violin back in 4th grade and really helped shape me into the performer and musician I am today. Since I was little, I went to his concerts with the Arapahoe Philharmonic Orchestra. I’d sit there in awe of the amazing violinist he was and dreamed of becoming like him.

I first asked him to play on The Tracks Before Us about a year before we recorded, and he was all in. But about five months before the session, he was diagnosed with cancer. We had to wait and see if he would have enough white blood cells to play, and just two days before the recording, his doctor finally gave him the okay. He came in and gave the performance of a lifetime. What you hear perfectly embodies the soul of the piece.

Having this little moment in time recorded and preserved through the song is incredibly special to me, because it means my grandpa and I will always have something that ties us together, this work of art.”

Sounds to me like, just like the grateful family in the story above, Levi got to return the gift of artistry his grandfather originally gave to him.

Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.

— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize

*Teaser Alert! What upcoming release? Is it called THE LIFE OF A SHOWBOY? MOPUS 2?

**Like Donny Osmond, Levi is a wholesome-looking young man who’s a little bit country and a little bit rock ‘n’ roll. This Dad Joke brought to you by a man in his 50s and sponsored by Depends.***

***For clarification purposes, this joke was not actually sponsored by Depends. Unless they wanna go in now. I mean it depends.

****I did, however, need to water Levi twice a day in the studio so he would blossom into the recording artist he is.

*****I have just given Dennis this way cool nickname and I’m like totally gonna trademark it when this story goes viral. Don’t even think about it — this is MY $$$.

Sidney graduated in June and begins grad school at Yale School Of Management Tuesday to pursue corporate sustainability as one of only 15 “Yale Silver Scholars” selected worldwide.** Here, for the first time shared beyond friends and family, is Ode To Sidney Grace! Ode To Sidney Grace personally chronicles 18 years of a girl we adore. Never stop making music a part of the most important moments with people you love.

Creativity Can Change Your World

Two years after Ode To Sidney Grace, Sidney returned the favor and was pivotal — playing guitar, piano, and singing — producing a song for Riley we debuted the same way when her li’l sis went to college.*** That song stays in the family for another two years until she graduates…

If you’d like to read the rather remarkable underdog story of creativity, grit and social consciousness that made Sidney one of the Yale MBA program’s only students under 25 years old — even when she did not have the typical undergrad background to be an Ivy League MBA — and why Sidney chose this path, read it here. I admire the hell out of it.

Sidney graduated with High Honors at UC Santa Barbara after being awarded the Outstanding Academic Achievement Award for exemplary scholastic performance in Environmental Studies, and Distinction in her second major of Communications. She developed and created a scientific study published as her Honors Thesis that demonstrates a simple workplace measure that could make a huge impact on environmentalism worldwide. Her study summary below is now on longterm display at UCSB’s main academic library as an example of the impact students can make. And the Harvard/Yale football game’s now a family grudge match these West Coasters fly out for.****

Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.

— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize

*True story: Sidney wrote a song called “Bye Bye Truck, See Sidney Later” when she was two years old. She wrote this… when we were sitting on a curb watching trucks in CA.

**West Coast Boy confessional: I didn’t even know what state Yale was in until Sidney applied there. Kinda thought it was in Massachusetts ‘cause I knew it was Ivy League fancy-pants. I’m like real worldly ‘n’ stuff. Go Bulldogs! (Just learned that too.)

***The song is called “Furiosa: A Riley Max Saga.”*****

****So my Bay Area friends understand: The Harvard/Yale game is like the Stanford/Cal Big Game, but played by JV teams.

*****The song is not called “Furiosa: A Riley Max Saga.”

So much so that Diversity is the name of my upcoming fall single and video on the Doctor Noize retrospective album Positive Energy! While others diverge from it, I’m gonna shake it in front of you like the shiny keys to my happiness they are.* If you think diversity sucks, I’m fine losing you as a fan, student or client. I’m not the one who’s gonna get bored and boring in the process. So…

This Noizeletter’s a simple shout-out to some of the diverse artists, students, clients, volunteers and reviewers who’ve colored my world this year. Note they’re not just progressive people and places.** Guess what? If they were, I wouldn’t be living diversity. My life’s been enriched by all the people below. I’m truly grateful to…

The People Who Shape Me

Baylor University’s All University Sing in February, who invited me to come be a Judge.*** 2,000 students in 18 entirely student-directed groups performed in a competition of singing, choreography, sets and student orchestra. Each group (frats, sororities, etc.) created a mini musical. A reminder that culture is everything; Baylor has a culture that creative performance is something every student might do every year. They sell out the 2,000 seat theater six nights a year!

Shazia Ali, a brilliant Colorado Springs Music Professor who’s attended my Stanford Recording Arts Workshop three years in a row and was just named Music Department Head of Pikes Peak State College, where she’s launching… a brand new Music Audio Technology Degree based in part on our Stanford program. I’ve accepted an offer to be Chair of the Advisory Board for her program and wonderful students, many of whom I now know well.****

Rhythm Of Asia by Patrick Adams & Vivian Fang Liu, which I produced for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May.

Men’s Devotional with Chris Stefanick on the world’s top Catholic prayer and meditation app, Hallow. I produced many of these segments at Reach Studios. While not Catholic myself, I’m a fan of the courage of the new Pope, and Chris is an inspiring and positive voice in this field.

Students who keep in touch like Johny Kwon, who’s gone on from the Stanford Workshop to study music and music business at USC grad school and writes: “I’ve been thinking a lot about my time at the CCRMA Workshop—it left a lasting impression on me. I recently co-founded a new management agency. One of our artists, KYU, has already gained nearly 900,000 followers on Instagram, nearly 3 million streams on Spotify, and 1 million views on YouTube, getting us offers from record labels. I also had the opportunity to write the album title for a major boy band in Korea.”

The people of Wyoming! I held two Songwriting & Recording Workshops at Cheyenne’s giant Laramie County Library. Recorded Animals Rock! with young kids and the bluesy Cold, Dark Days with grade 7-12 students. Played a Doctor Noize concert that afternoon including and featuring these songs and musicians, headlined the huge Nic Fest at Wyoming’s only contemporary art museum the Nicolaysen, and head back for many shows with my friends in Natrona County in August!

The diverse industry folks guest-lecturing at my Stanford Recording Arts Workshop this summer, including Grammy-winning producers Emilio Miler from Argentina, Bill Harefrom the US, and the jaw-droppingly virtuosic violinist Jeremy Cohen. Bill’s literally bringing his Grammy for students to pet.*****

My dedicated peers on the Boards I serve on, the Stanford Alumni for Climate Action, the Children’s Music Network, and the aforementioned Pikes Peak Board. We keep each other inspired and laughing through meaningful work.

Nati Grinkrug, a brilliant engineer and artist and former Stanford Workshop student who’s heading to UC Berkeley this year but has offered to pay it forward and come back to share his expertise to help us get the Stanford studio set up for this year’s students.******

Elizabeth Anaya, my former college student and current Business & Studio Manager at Doctor Noize Inc., who’ll return to higher education this fall to further develop the experience she’s earned here. I’m grateful for the contributions she’s made, including posting all the Noizeletters to the websites.

The Rocky Mountain Electroacoustic Music Festival, which invited Riley Max and I to perform 2025 Alive and Footprint in March alongside luminaries in the field. Speaking of which…

Global Gratitude

I’m grateful for the dozens of international reviews and tens of thousands of views and streams that have already poured in for last month’s release 2025 Alive. Notably, many of the reviews found catharsis in the diversity of its very production: multigenerational, multimedia, multi-genre, multi-perspective…

“A snapshot of the collective spirit… the masterpiece is a reminder that the world around us is always in flux, but love is an all-conquering constant.”
—Melodic Magazine (Worldwide Music Source)

“2025 Alive is like nothing we have ever seen or heard before.”
—We Found New Music (Hollywood)

“The production is completely immersive. I was captivated… Yes, it feels like a generational conversation in musical form.”
—Expansion Radial (Mexico)

“A visual symphony of the modern mind… to extraordinary new heights.”
—Too Much Love Magazine (Miami)

“What if the mirror told the truth? 2025 Alive is a multigenerational piece that doesn’t offer easy answers — it raises urgent questions instead.”
—Rival Magazine (Los Angeles)

“A compelling fusion of music and visual art that captures the emotional landscape of our times.”
—Cynx Magazine (England)

“A riveting musical and visual experience.”
—Earmilk (San Francisco)

“2025 Alive takes audiences on a journey… An amazing juxtaposition of authenticity against the hollowness of current events.”
—V13 Media (Canada)

“This is a hell of an audio visual production that only really makes sense when it’s seen and heard.”
—The Slow Music Movement (England)

“A cinematic fantasia.”
—Sélection Sorties (France)

We only have a few spots left at the Stanford Recording Arts Workshop this summer. Join us! And while I’m out, come to my Doctor Noize Show at the San Jose Children’s Discovery Museum on 7/16 or my CO & WY Shows this summer.

Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.

— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize

*That metaphor sucked. Is he writing about keys or trees? Do NOT let this guy write your lyrics… that would be bananas…

**We get boring real fast when we sit around the table and whine to each other ‘bout stuff.

***I am the Simon Cowell of Baptist university talent shows. YOU’RE TERRIBLE!!!

****I believe this means people will sit on me.

*****“Come ‘ere ‘n’ shnuggle… Yer a good wittle Gwammy! Good boy!! Golden boy!!!”

******Cal has beaten Stanford in the Big Game 472 years in a row. This angers me and gives me thinly-concealed resentment toward the otherwise-amiable Nati.

“I hope people watch and feel both the gravity and hope we poured into this piece.”

— Sidney Cullinan, 2025 Alive Director

This Mental Health Awareness Month I release a multigenerational multimedia collaboration I hope you’ll find cathartic: 2025 Alive. The streaming soundtrack is a high-tech improvisation by me and my daughter Riley Max, and the film is a cinematic fantasia by my daughter Sidney Cullinan. They express the myriad of thoughts and feelings we’ve had during this unconventional cultural year that, regardless of where you stand… feels like a test of some sort. A test of new ideas. Of old ideas in a modern world. Of stamina. Willpower. Intellect. Empathy. Patriotism.

2025 Alive has vocals throughout but only one lyric: “Test.” This word is immediately deconstructed and splintered into pieces, like so much in our modern world. Whether current events are testing your resolve in a culture you loved, or you support those who are testing just how far we can break or reform our norms, this premise is apropos of what you are experiencing in 2025.*

We hope you find our work meaningful in this amazing and overwhelming year to be alive.

Our Unconventional Purpose & Process

“I hope listeners can find something in 2025 Alive that makes them feel grateful and hopeful and happy and sad and angry and tired and a little excited too. Or maybe just one of those.”

— Riley Max, 2025 Alive Singer / Illustrator

Like many Americans at the start of 2025, I was feeling physically, intellectually and emotionally exhausted. So much so that I actually felt sick. For the first time in a long time. I saw doctors, consulted a therapist, talked to friends and family… and learned a lot of us were feeling the same way. That’s when I realized body and mind doctors had nothing to fix in me. I just needed to express what was within: in art, music, film. Sometimes words fall short.**

I went down in my studio and noticed I had my whole live rig set up for Doctor Noize show rehearsals. But, honestly, I didn’t want to rehearse my kids’ show. I was feeling something else. I spent five minutes setting up a few instrument channels in Ableton Live with some of the most darkly beautiful effects imaginable — on guitar, keytar, sax, percussion, even voice — and decided I was going to improvise what I was feeling. The soundscape of 2025 Alive is what came out.

I looped instruments one by one without rehearsal. I’d record one instrument, put it down, pick up another instrument, and start loop recording it, without breaks. The loops last different durations, so the piece evolved underneath me like a monster I only partially created, and with each new instrument I’d respond to what I heard, which were things I’d played but not entirely organized or created. It felt very apropos to what life feels like right now — semi-controlled, semi-chaotic.

I immediately felt a sense of release and calm. It resonated with what I felt more than any words I had been able to articulate. But I also knew I wanted the voice of the younger generation enhancing it. When Riley came home from Harvard, I asked her to improvise vocals over whatever this was I’d created, with the same rule: No rehearsal and no editing after. She sang over the soundscape on a wireless mic, and I played my Roland HandSonic percussion instrument — an instrument I know well and love*** — both one take, no edits. And the recording was done.

I gave the audio to Sidney at UCSB, told her as best I could what had inspired me to start it, and said: “Do whatever you feel when you hear this.” She asked if it should be abstract, artful, or commentary... I said it could be whatever. So she did whatever**** and sent me the video. When Sidney sent me the final draft, it brought me to tears. Perhaps this is because I’m now an emotional empty-nester. But I don’t think so. I think this is one of the most unique works of art I’ve ever been involved with, a collaboration of deeply connected souls in opposite parts of the country and different phases of life in 2025. But feel free to make fun of me if it’s the former.*****

Detailed Production Notes For AudioCinemaPhiles

I established purposeful creation rules for 2025 Alive. Rule #1 was no overdubs or retakes in its recording. Rule #2 was that I’d be a crap parent and give my daughters/collaborators very little instruction on what do do. And Rule #3 was that I had to use the performances as is except for mixing them with extra effects, panning and volume as desired. But no editing.******

I broke Rule #3 twice. (I’m an artist, not a scientist…*******) Once to fade Riley’s vocals in backwards leading to the big climactic section, and once to do the same with the percussion. I wanted a bigger crescendo and felt cheating was the only solution. Aside from that, 2025 Alive is live. Here is exactly how it was created:

(1) I hit record and started playing guitar with a really cool, epic avant-garde guitar sound. Roughly speaking, when I play individual notes on the guitar with this effect, they sound like notes; but when I play chords, they sound like distant rumbles or explosions, depending on how I play them. This allowed me to play the guitar both as a melodic instrument and a sound effect.

(2) I stopped recording guitar when it felt right, hit “loop,” put down the guitar, and picked up the keytar to loop a beautiful but rather melancholic chordal synth part.

(3) I put down the keytar, picked up the guitar set to a very different, more present and technological sound (but still very organically expressive), and looped that. I echoed the four-note motif I played in the first guitar part but added other things that felt right over what I heard.

(4) I put down the guitar and picked up the keytar to play it again — this time a more intense solo electronic string sound, playing strange melodies over the concoction underneath.

(5) I put down the keytar and played saxophone over the now-rather-substantial bed of music.

(6) I put down the saxophone and picked up a wireless handheld mic, singing over the instrumental loops and looping my voice with a boatload of effects on them.

(7) I picked up the guitar once more and played a more active extreme part for the climax through an effect that includes the sound of backwards tape echoes, which to me represented both where it seemed we might be going historically and also a disturbing yet beautiful apex.

(8) After this, I faded the instruments out, picked up the handheld mic again, and decided the piece needed a human voice singing something new to close it — and for some reason it felt right to sing a rather weird final vocal part based on and deconstructing the word “test.”

(9) Riley improvised a vocal part. I don’t know what to say about Riley’s artistic empathy and improvisation. You’ll hear it. Her voice and performance grounds the whole piece in a simple organic human element anyone can relate to. She does it onstage all the time.

(10) I improvised one percussion take on the Roland HandSonic — a beautiful and organic digital instrument and interface. I told myself I would change the percussion patch to something that felt right in between each perceived looping layer. This was tricky and subjective as the parts actually loop at different times. I did something on the HandSonic I find myself doing more often in my production practice: I printed permanent effects that influence how I play the instrument while recording. Specifically, I intentionally set the preamp too hot, so playing the instrument loudly made it distort a bit. It made playing the parts feel more dangerous and exciting live, with more dynamic consequences. You can really hear this at the big climax. It gives a different sound to the listener, but it also inspired me to play in a much different, and more intense, way as a player.

(11) The sound you hear in the background, fading in at the start and out at the end, is actually just the natural haunting hum of one of the guitar effects I played through. It’s actually a really quiet byproduct of the effect… But I liked it so much that I cranked it way up at the start and end.

(12) I did very little on the film except approve and respond to a few drafts. I love the sci-fi digital static effects Sidney used, to me representing the digital signal-to-noise issues present in all of our communications and ways of thinking in 2025. I love that she briefly inserts our family for a few seconds here and there, representing us as a very small part of the transpiring tapestry of life. I love that she attaches human moments to organic sounds… her film’s pacing… the moments of beauty, grandeur and community… the digital and information overload leading to something indescribable, simultaneously inspiring and numbing our hearts and minds…

(13) The cover art is by Riley, who is now a visual arts and film major in college even though she’s performing and producing music like crazy. We gave her no guidelines, which is fine ‘cause she doesn’t like to follow guidelines anyway… Sidney and I cracked up and loved the dystopian Wizard-Of-Oddness of the image she sent to represent our collaborative work as its cover.

Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.

— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize

*I’d love to receive written or artistic depictions from you that express your experience in 2025.

**But other times words allow you to express things like antidisestablishmentarianistic authoritarianism, which incidentally as far as I know is not a thing.

***I was not paid for this sincere product plug, but wish I had been. $$$

****That’s like totally a genre.

*****Or, for that matter, for any other reason.

******Rule #4 was the unspoken We Don’t Talk About Fight Club.

*******This is questionable.

“I want to deeply thank you, Cory, and CCRMA for one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever been blessed with. I have never encountered a more passionate, supportive, and talented group of people. More than ever I feel comfortable leaning into my career as a musician and who I want to be as a person, and that is in great part thanks to the program and environment you create for all of us. Being surrounded by such a vast array of styles and human beings made me feel at peace and at home, and I cannot ever thank you enough for that.”

— Sean Guenther, Recording Artist*

I head to Stanford each summer to teach their Recording Arts program. Our innovative course gives students 24-hour-a-day access to the studio at Stanford’s legendary Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). Students have gone on to become recording artists, Disney Audio Imagineers, and college professors developing their own Recording Arts programs.** A new short documentary by my fave filmmaker*** features students talking about just that, including a professor who’s come three years in a row and is launching a new degree at her university based on her experience with us! ZOINKS!!!****

“Thanks to Cory Cullinan for showing us all your magic tricks with your genuine charisma, authenticity, and fantastic methodology… and my talented peers from whom I learned a lot and built awesome relationships. I’m excited to see what those next-gen musicians will achieve in the near future.”

— Miguel Concha Seltzer, Stanford Summer Recording Arts Student (now Associate Sound Editor/Mixer at Walt Disney Imagineering)

The program quickly bonds into a diverse ensemble creating an album and supporting each other while they develop recording skills and techniques.***** Students range from college music professors to professionals to undergrads, from South Korea to San Jose. Stanford Workshop recordings have had international professional success and impact. There’s no other program like it!

“Cory Cullinan — I just have to take a moment to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being the wonderful and inspirational person that you are. This was a trip of a lifetime and we are forever grateful to have been a part of this amazing event!”

— Shazia Ali, Pikes Peak State College Professor of Music

Stanford’s special to me. My undergrad Advisor, music legend John Chowning (who I just hosted lecture/performances with), developed FM synthesis there. The “Father of Electronic Music,” Max Mathews (the music software “Max” is named after him), roamed the hallways. I was Co-Chair of my last Stanford Reunion; Social Media Director of Stanford’s most attended Reunion ever; and a Stanford STARS Assembly member for top graduate leaders and volunteers. I invest and volunteer at the place because I adore it. You will too. Register for the Recording Arts Workshop here!

Hear Our 2024 Double Album!

“I’m thrilled to share the track I recorded during the Stanford Workshop. This would not have been possible without your invaluable guidance. The insights and lessons I gained in such a short time are something I’ll always cherish, and I can’t thank you enough for your mentorship. You’ve given me a clearer perspective of the bigger picture and practical tips to help me move forward. Your advice has been truly empowering.”

— Lakshmi Shankar Rao, Recording Artist

This email came from India! 2024’s talented class made a double album in two weeks. Composing new pieces; completing and mixing works-in-progress; a blend of hands-on lectures and recording and mixing sessions; heartfelt conversations about what it means to be a musician and how to navigate the music industry;****** all with time for shenanigans and making meaningful connections with everyone in the room. Riley Max and my Manager Elizabeth Anaya were Teaching Assistants. And speaking of them… they both have new tracks on the recordings below. Elizabeth’s is a sweet Latin jazz piece, and Riley’s is an ear candy pop hit that won’t leave you once you hear it… and a preview of her upcoming second album.

Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.

— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize

*Sean is, obviously, insane.

**Some have also wisely gone on to do something more financially rational than making music. So I mean not everyone at the Stanford Workshop is insane. But it does help.

***I mean, aside from all those Hallmark movie directors. Really dug that one where Olivia gets a magical letter from Santa and commits like nobody’s business to dating three different men named Nick.

****I just looked it up and zoinks is actually a word in the dictionary. I cannot decide whether this makes me respect the dictionary more or less.

*****They also get the exclusive benefit of hearing my dumb jokes in a live setting for no additional fee.

******And more dumb jokes. Also, I totally didn’t cry on the last day telling the students how great they are. Shut up I don’t know where you heard that.

The show features a diverse array of Grammy winners, pop and new age producers, children’s musicians, opera stars, orchestras, and students I’ve worked with. It’s about philosophy, creativity, collaboration and production. I am, of course, incredibly serious and professional at all times as host and interviewer.* This is like totally why people work with me.**

Give it a listen! We worked hard on it to give folks a smile and lift in these times, delight you with the quality and colors of collaboration, and inspire you to reach out to those people in your life who bring you joy. What you’ll hear is that, behind the professional productions, this is really just me and my music friends old and new making music together for some good. Good is good.

In The Show…

“The goal of collaborations is to make a better product than you’d create on your own.”

— 3x Grammy-winning Producer Lonnie Park

Lonnie says this on the show, and it’s a great mantra for our times. Not just in music. Over the course of an hour, we hear from recent Grammy winners 123 Andrés; Grammy-winning opera singers Nathan Gunn and Isabel Leonard; virtuosic recording artist and pianist Vivian Fang Liu; 5-Time Grammy Loser Justin Roberts;*** conductor Kyle Pickett; one of my fave Stanford Workshop students; recording artist The Microphone Doctors; former Children’s Music Network Board Members Dana Cohenhour & Katherine Dines; and I close with my duet Straight From The Heart with multiple Grammy-winner Lucy Kalantari.

We hear my collaborations with two different orchestras on two different continents, and how they inspired and completely changed the trajectory of one young man’s life in the audience who was there.**** We hear two different versions of the same song that went in two different directions based on the different all-star collaborators involved. We hear my collaborations with three different groups of students. Real and fun behind-the-scenes stuff.

Artists & Educators: Stand Tall. We Need You.

What a difference a few months makes!

Several months ago I wrote about listening, leading, learning, and reckless micropacifisms in a polarized world. I meant every word. But I also wrote you should stand up for what you believe.

Listening back to my radio show above today — recorded in October — is pretty amazing. Many of the things we talk about on the show are punishable offenses for artists now, losing you jobs and gigs; at the time of recording, they were commonly and openly discussed artistic beliefs. Now people are taking reference of the very positive concepts I talk about on the show off their websites. Off their playlists. Out of their stage shows. Literally. No exaggeration.

What has happened at The Kennedy Center, the country’s premiere arts institution, is alarming. The US President has announced artists there will be censored and must only represent values he likes. I want to be clear about something: What I just said is not a political statement. What has happened at The Kennedy Center is a political statement. I’m saying the same thing most artists have always said; I’m not changing. But many are. Arts organizations — and the arts — are not supposed to be run by politicians. They’re supposed to be run by artists.

Schools are experiencing similar censorship. Colleges are being told to ban or eliminate courses with words like “bias,” “racism,” and “women” or lose funding. Women??? WTF? They’re also being told — explicitly by our government — that students cannot state their opinions at protests if their opinions are not the same as the government’s. Columbia University, one of our country’s greatest institutions, has capitulated in hopes of returned funding and agreed to a series of changes censoring the flow of ideas by students and teachers. Other schools are considering doing the same.

All of this must be met with immediate resistance in words and action, not compliance or sideline standing — and I would and will also say this in defense of artists and educators who want to say things I disagree with.***** Without artists and educators standing tall now, a chilling effect of self-censorship on top of the official censorship is starting to occur.

In the last month alone, I’ve heard from two extremely successful professional musicians and educators who are openly changing their projects and performances — and, in one case, a collaboration with me — because of “politics.” They’ve backed out of or changed things they had committed to do before. Words and concepts that accurately represent their work they’re no longer standing behind publicly. In releases. In the prose on their websites. By them. Voluntarily compliance to commercially fly with the winds of the time.

I understand. And I’m not gonna do that.

As artists, we must be leaders. As leaders, we must have the courage to represent our values out loud when it matters most. Even when it could sacrifice our career interests. If we don’t, I personally don’t believe fans or voters should follow us. Artists and leaders who have truly represented their values in these times even when it may cost them — people like Issa Rae, Low Cut Connie and Liz Cheney, three entities not often in the same sentence — really stand out now. Stand out. Leave the brave less alone. Let’s do this together.

I’m releasing a Doctor Noize retrospective album in 2025. Been the plan all along. Really excited about it. It has several new singles and videos too: Diversity celebrating collaboration, equity and inclusion;****** Funk The Planet challenging every listener to be an environmentalist in a political climate that endorses no such thing; and songs celebrating people living life together in and out of the traditional mainstream. I’m also releasing several Cory Cullinan adult tracks against the grain. Not to be a rebel. Because changing them would be rebelling against me. Fake. To fit in.

I will not be hired for some shows, represented by some publicists and media, played on some stations, or be invited to perform or teach at some schools because of this. Just as important: Others who do quietly fall in compliance with today’s artistic censorship will be hired instead of me and those like me for those things. I see it happening already, and not just in the arts — in media, in politics, in education, and more. Their careers will flourish while those who stand firm won’t.

If you’d like to show your support of the values I will overtly lean into instead of shy away from in these times, you can do so by promoting and playing my music and writing, or hiring me to perform or teach. You can give to my productions and performances so they continue. But, honestly, I’m gonna do ‘em regardless, so you can also do the same for others who, like me, are not self-censoring and are making ethical decisions that will cost them business.

I will not be changing my values or what I talk about on my website, onstage, in my Noizeletter... anywhere. I’ll be doing my thing, and if my thing is less popular than it used to be, than I am very, very happy to be less popular. You will always know what I believe if you talk to me or look into me. And I will always respect you and encourage your right to represent what you believe, even if I disagree with it. That’s art and education to me. That’s curiosity and empathy to me. That’s who I will be, fashionable or not.

I understand if you cancel me or keep a wide professional orbit around me until ideas of empathy, ethics, and responsibility that are spoken in direct contradiction to current power circles are no longer considered “political.” I’ll be fine. Unlike some of our more vulnerable members of society, it’s still a free country for me to do what I want,******* even as I will no doubt face consequences, and those consequences will grow in time as censorship compliance grows. It’s certainly possible we won’t be fine one day. But if you’d like to help me, and others like me, continue to be a free and intentional artist and educator, contact me, and my team will be thrilled to get you involved.

Back to the radio show: Listening to a show I made five months ago that sounds like it’s from a completely different era or generation has made me realize just how fast change has come and why in the last few months I — and many others — have felt alone and disconnected. But I refuse to allow that to make me feel scared or be alone. The solution is to connect and promote acceptance and love with all who will do so. Loudly. From the rooftops. From the stage. From the internet. From the academic institutions. On the airwaves. To your friends. To your rivals. At protests.

I will still be doing this one to one, grassroots, if that’s what it someday comes to. Be who you want to be. Not who you think it’s safest to be. I know it’s a big ask. And I’m loudly asking. The best way you can keep this world colorful and beautiful and free is to be yourself instead of what somebody else is asking you to be.

I sincerely hope you enjoy the radio show.

Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.

— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize

*Uh huh.

**Uhhh… right.

***I really really really enjoyed writing that Justin, and look forward to your Taylor Swift Revenge Song.

****Or read the wonderful Eric Whitmer’s story here.

*****I am, for example, an avid supporter of the existence of the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford.

******Looks like I won’t be performing at the Kennedy Center!

*******I am currently NOT writing from a detention or deportation center… but others who look different than I do and represent the same thing are.

Anyone who knew me in high school knows how much a chance to meet Howard in my adulthood means to me.** Howard Jones in many ways became my role model in tough times when the men I most loved died — his music, his lyrics, his positive energy. Almost all his songs are about the power of perspective and integrity, a philosophical viewpoint mainstreamed by this wonderful songwriter and performer with crazy hair who made keyboards cool.

I must have listened intently to his Dream Into Action album hundreds of times in my teenage bedroom to get me to decide I was gonna go out and be okay despite everything going on in my family at the time. It was that cinematic “art changing a young man’s life” moment. I probably wouldn’t be a professional recording artist, and definitely wouldn’t have created my one-man-band show, without Howard.

Speaking with him this month, for the second time in my life, I was able to express my gratitude for what he did to help a young kid in a tumultuous time losing his older brother and father learn to become a man anyway. I also told his wife Jan of 40+ years, who was as kind and delightful as I expected and accompanies him on tour. The kindness that comes through in his music is also reflected in his life partner, his interactions with others, and the crew around him.

The Golden Rule Is Well, Kinda Golden

There have been a few people on the other end in my life — Doctor Noize fans, students I taught — who’ve been kind enough to take the time to reach out to me in their adulthood to let me know what my influence meant to them. A 23-year-old once wrote me that I had brought him onstage at age 11 during a Doctor Noize Symphony Show to conduct the orchestra, he decided right then and there he would go to a top college and be a musician… and he was writing to tell me he’d just graduated from Vanderbilt, and auditioned for and won the job as principal percussionist in the very orchestra I brought him up to conduct as a child. A life dream he forged at my show.

So I’ve made it a point to tell my unexpected mentors their influence on me as well. I got to tell Howard his huge role in my story. The one where he inspired me, in my darkest days, to literally put my dreams into action. I told him I wouldn’t be a recording artist or teaching others to be recording artists at Stanford without him. With typical grace, Howard said: “Well, that was all you.”

But it wasn’t. It was me after he gave me the courage to go for it. That’s what art can do.

This month I got to thank some of the influences in my life who deserved thanking. John Chowning also exhibited kindness and gratitude to everyone we saw that week, from the audience to the soundpeople. I highly recommend you take the time to thank your mentors. It’s a wonderful feeling.

Below is Howard’s sublime and legendary piano performance of his song “Hide And Seek” at Live Aid with 72,000 people singing along was watched live by an estimated 1.9 billion people on TV.

My Teen Meeting With HoJo Was Wayne’s Worldy

How did I know Howard would be kind in person? Because I had already learned this. I met Howard Jones as a teen in 1989. My brilliant friend Mark Van Horn — who introduced me to both the recording studio and my wife, and then died, like my brother, of a brain tumor at an extremely young age — and I went to HoJo’s huge show at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, CA. Mark was a Mormon kid days from heading out on his 2-year mission, and with apologies to the church, he was hellbent on meeting our idol. So we did what any kid in an 80s teen movie would do: We hopped the security fence to run backstage and find Howard after the show.*****

Well… as if right out of a teen movie where we were the music nerds, two gigantamongous men with huge biceps appeared out of nowhere and literally picked us up by our collars to, um, escort us to Shoreline’s back gate, well before we reached Howard. Mission Unaccomplished! I will never forget looking up and watching myself carried out of a major venue by cartoon musclemen.

But our true Wayne’s World Moment had not yet occurred. As we mourned our failure to hijack Howard after his show, we discovered that, well, Things Can Only Get Better. Out the venue’s back gate walked Martin Jones, Howard’s brother and his band’s bass player. We recognized him because we were superfans. He noticed we’d been kicked out the back, and asked us why.

Mark immediately tried to get him to sign his shoe, which, incidentally, he did. Very nice man. Then I said: “My crazy friend here is leaving for two years and we really wanted to meet Howard before he left. But our Wayne’s World Infiltration Mission failed.”

Martin looked at us with a look of both judgment and respect for our commitment to the cause. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Concord Pavilion is near here, right?” We answered YES! I’ll never forget what he said next: “If you can get yourselves to the show in Concord tomorrow night, I’ll put you both on the VIP Guest List. Sound good?”

Uh… YEAH. We gave him our names. He wrote them down on a crumpled pocket receipt.**** We spent the rest of the evening debating whether we were two semi-criminal teens who had just been punked or not. But “Silicon Valley Wayne & Garth” drove across the bay to Concord Pavilion the next night. We asked at the box office where the VIPs went. The lady looked at us skeptically but asked our names. We gave them, nervously. She looked down at her list, then up with noticeable surprise: “Huh!?!Here ya go.” And she handed us slick VIP laniards with our names and seats. She told us to take our VIP passes to a particular door after the show to meet Howard.

We did. They took us into a room backstage. There was Howard Jones, holding his baby. Nobody else. He learned our names. Spent about five minutes talking with us. Asked uswhat his next single should be. We gave different answers. He quipped: “Thanks a lot.” He cared. He was a huge star at the time. He couldn’t have been nicer to us two dumb puppies. And I’ll never forget it.

Mark died a few years later. He left a wife and six month old son behind. We’ve kept up over the years. Here’s a fun little nugget for anyone on this list I went to high school with: I’m recording a version of Mark and my regional “hit,” Green Bow Tie, for an upcoming album. Mark will play on the song via old MIDI files I have of him on keys years ago when we both wanted to be Howard Jones. Playing alongside Mark on the new recording… will be his son Matthew, now a grown man and a damn good guitar player. Creating this musical moment… will mean a lot to me.

Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.

— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize

*Fun Fact: Howard Jones’ “What Is Love?” is thought to be the first major chart hit featuring the eventually ubiquitous DX7 FM synth bass — a sound whose synthesis was developed and created by our houseguest that same week, John Chowning.

**Anyone who knew me in high school also knows I really loved that stonewashed jeans jacket.***

***Anyone who knew I loved that stonewashed jeans jacket also knows I really loved that white jeans jacket. Also I just footnoted a footnote. That’s like a thing now.

****Pre-cell phone days. For the kids in the audience, paper is a thing that you handwrite stuff on, in cursive if you wanna write it faster. Cursive is a thing that… oh, never mind.

*****Please do not tell the Mormon church this story about Mark. He was a good and devoted lad.

I originally conceived Footprint as an undergrad at Stanford University in the late 1980s taking famed composer and electronic music legend John Chowning’s 220A course. I started working on it only to find it was too time-consuming for my undergraduate courseload; at the time, digital audio workstations didn’t exist, and creating all the field recordings and somehow putting them together in a multitrack mix would’ve taken months or years of work. So I never finished it. But I always wanted to.

Fast forward to the mid-2020s. I received word that Dr. Chowning, my Stanford Music Major Advisor and the creator of the FM synthesis that powers the DX7 keyboard and more on almost every 80s and 90s pop recording,* was coming at age 89 to a concert I was playing with Riley Max in San Jose, CA. I immediately thought: ‘I have to finish the piece I never finished in Chowning’s class.’ Assisted by my own former college Recording Arts student Elizabeth Anaya (who’s now my Business & Studio Manager), Elizabeth and I worked at my Reach Studios to finish the piece before the show. It sounds remarkably similar to what I heard in my head in 1989.

An Evolving Piece That’s What You Make It

Footprint now exists in three formats: as an audio piece, as a live audience interaction piece, and as a multimedia collaboration with my daughter Sidney Cullinan. As an audio piece, it was premiered to my Recording Arts students at Stanford in the summer of 2024. When surveyed as to what the piece was about and its message, the students fell into three distinct groups with different but strongly specific answers. This is exactly what I’d hoped as a composer -- an immersive emotional journey, yet one open to intellectual interpretation based on your own experience.

Playing on this interactive and contemplative nature, the piece was premiered live in San Jose, CA in the summer of 2024, with Dr. Chowning in attendance. I dedicated it to him and said I’d always wanted to finish it in Chowning’s class. At the end of the piece, my former professor shouted cheekily from the crowd: “Cory, you did it!” Among other things, the interactive version of the piece allows audiences to experience the observation that we shape our own environment.**

For the multimedia version of Footprint, Sidney was given free rein to write, edit and create a short film, a “filmtrack” to the score instead of the other way around. Sidney has directed music videos featuring Grammy winners and more, produced environmental documentaries as both composer and editor, designed social media for the US Green Chamber Of Commerce, created campaigns and social media content securing the greatest engagement in the history of the world’s largest environmental non-profit (The Nature Conservancy), and is double-majoring and writing her Honors Thesis in Environmental Studies and Communications at UC Santa Barbara, the birthplace of the American environmental movement. I find her interpretation of Footprint deeply moving.

And we’re not done… I’m hosting and introducing my mentor John Chowning for a series of lecture/performances of the legendary composer’s work at University of Colorado Denver (where I earned my Masters in Recording Arts and was a professor) and Pikes Peak State College (where some of my finest summer Stanford Recording Arts students attend) in Colorado in February 2025. These events are open to the public*** — details will be announced here soon.

Obviously Footprint has some resonance with events this month, but actually we scheduled it for a January 2025 release six months ago. The resonance is with reality, not anything we planned. I welcome your thoughts, observations and interpretations of Footprint. To be honest, I’m still trying to figure out exactly what to do with it. That’s one of the most wonderful things about art.

Thanks for your time. Share positive energy. Go make the world you live in.

— Cory Cullinan / Doctor Noize

*Watch this for a long and cool interview with Dr. Chowning on his most famous creation. And check out its YouTube video comments — in a world where everyone’s a troll and critic online, there’s universal admiration and love for his passion, creativity, and ability to describe how it all came together.

**A huge shout-out to those bold audience members who were the first to venture onstage for the interactive component of Footprint at our first concert performance of it.

***I’ll be sending out personal invitations to faculty, students and community members at other colleges in the Denver metro as well. But you don’t have to be a member of these communities to come — both host universities have kindly made the events open to the public.