In the Wake of Hendrix’s Hands
Jimi Hendrix, My First Memory, and the Quantum Ripple of a Musical Gift
While reading a concert review on Medium by Becky Piatt Davidson titled “I Got Covid at the Gary Clark Jr. Concert in Paris,” I was struck by her comparison between the guitarist Gary Clark Jr. and Jimi Hendrix. For reasons I can’t fully explain, this sparked a potent memory — one that began in the summer of 1980 in a narrow living room on Eastern Long Island and came full circle with a handshake in an alley behind a recording studio in Seattle 23 years later.
The Genesis of a Lifelong Journey
In 1969,, my father, along with three of his other friends, drove to upstate New York, parked their car randomly, got out, and followed the crowd of people walking toward a farm field in Woodstock, NY. They spent the next three nights and then Monday morning watching and being part of one of the most iconic cultural events of the 20th century.
Less than a decade later, I was born on the far end of a quiet island surrounded by potato fields and the Atlantic Ocean. My first clear memory is from the summer of 1980, sitting on the couch beside my father. Eleven years after Woodstock, he popped a VHS tape into the player, and on came Woodstock: The Movie.
I think I remember my mom telling me to cover my eyes during the nude sections and admonishing my dad, but the memory that stands out most vividly is towards the end of the movie. Jimi Hendrix played The Star-Spangled Banner, and in that moment, something vibrated inside me. The very atoms of my being were altered subtly and profoundly.
This ‘primordial’ memory begins at 1:44 of the embedded video, lasting until 2:40. Specifically, it is the close-ups of Jimi’s hands and those sounds, those remarkable otherworldly sounds. This imagery and sonic embrace seared not just into my memory but, as we will see, instantiated a series of events that would pull me forward in its wake.
How could those hands create those sounds, those images? The beauty and the horror — or is it the horror and the beauty? How could a pair of hands do that?
Hendrix was born in 1942 and grew up in Seattle, WA, on the opposite side of the world from where my father would later be born. Jimi had a younger brother, Leon, born six years after him. I entered the world 31 years later, not far from where I sat in the summer of 1980, watching Jimi’s performance at Woodstock.
After that day, I found myself repeatedly watching Hendrix’s performance. I would fast-forward to ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ and just watch, listen, and feel. It was as if I were receiving a gift, yet at the same time, it triggered a deep sense of compellation—an obligation. This feeling was a gift and an obligation intertwined, inseparable from one another. There was an ethical element embedded with this. I felt as though I owed something in return.
The Gift
In the American Pacific Northwest, where Hendrix was born, a French anthropologist named Marcel Mauss drew upon the studies of others, like Franz Boas, who had spent time among the Native inhabitants of the region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mauss’s work, particularly his seminal book ‘The Gift,’ outlines a remarkable system in which gifts were exchanged during large festivals called potlatches.
Thanks to Mauss’s analysis, we learn that the gifts are not transactions as we may understand them today but highly complex systems of social obligations that wove together a temporal and spiritual web ensuring the neighboring tribes of the Pacific Northwest acted, were impelled, to return the gift at some future date, with interest.
This system maintained peace and imbued objects with a mythic-religious or spiritual quality, endowing each object and gesture with a productive capacity. It was this very capacity that overtook my being in that moment in 1980. I was handed an object of immense mythico-spiritual importance. These ideas resonate with the work of American philosopher Susanne Langer, whose writings I have previously explored.
This obligation that grew inside me began a lifelong quest to harness the techniques and skills so that I, too, could one day give back to the universe what I felt was given to me that day.
From a Too Heavy Guitar To Finding My Voice in The Drums
My initial attempt to begin this productive quest did not go as planned. Sensing my growing obsession with Hendrix, my father brought out his old Les Paul, eager to teach me. But the guitar seemed to have other ideas. It was a solid mahogany Les Paul, heavy enough that I couldn’t stand and hold it, and when I tried sitting cross-legged to balance it, the weight pressed into my legs, making the experience more painful than inspiring. I struggled to form a simple ‘G’ chord with my left hand, but the only thing I could truly focus on was how heavy the guitar felt and how weak it made me feel.
As the universe would have it, I soon quit playing guitar. Instead, I returned to the Woodstock video, watching all the other performances. While none came close to Hendrix’s ability to transform his instrument into a transparent tool of pure expression, one performance resonated deeply with me — Carlos Santana’s ‘Soul Sacrifice.’ The music's energy, mythical-spiritual quality, felt almost as potent. What truly stood out was Michael Shrieve’s drum solo. Like Jimi’s performance, I found myself replaying it over and over again. This performance ultimately led me to switch from guitar to drums, a decision that would have profound consequences.
Entangled Realities-From Woodstock to Quantum Mechanics
Karen Barad, a theoretical physicist, authored a remarkable book in 2007 titled ‘Meeting The Universe Halfway.’ In it, she presents a theory known as ‘agential realism,’ which challenges our conventional modern understanding of dualistic metaphysics. Rather than humans standing apart from nature as observers who uncover fundamental truths, Barad posits that reality is a single, ontologically inseparable entity. In this view, humans and non-humans co-create our reality through continuous ‘intra-acting’ engagements.
Building on Niels Bohr’s revolutionary insight — that the instruments we use to measure the universe are not merely passive tools but actively participate in the productive unfolding of reality — Barad argues that different measuring instruments generate different phenomena, or “worlds.” These phenomena, in turn, shape and produce reality as we engage with these instruments in our pursuit of knowledge. This implies that our ontology is not just metaphysically monistic; rather, it is intrinsically intertwined with epistemology, leading to what Barad describes as an onto-epistemological reality.
So, an instrument of measurement doesn’t just passively observe reality — it actively changes it, creating phenomena that establish the boundaries of our intra-acting world. The guitar on the stage at Woodstock in the summer of 1969, played by Jimi Hendrix, wasn’t just producing sound; it was generating an objective representation of his involvement in the productive unfolding of our reality.
This moment was captured by video cameras and audio recording devices — measuring instruments that, according to Barad, made an “agential cut.” This cut created a new phenomenon with its boundaries that fundamentally alters our reality.
But Barad’s theory goes even further, introducing the idea of ‘enfolding.’ When we talk about phenomena, we must understand that they do not exist in isolation. They result from numerous intra-actions that bring together different aspects of reality. Enfolding is the process by which these elements, which incorporate past events, spatial contexts, and material conditions, are woven into the very fabric of the phenomenon. As Barad explains:
‘Phenomena are quantum entanglements of intra-acting agencies. Crucially, intra-actions cut things together and apart… Phenomena are not located in space and time; rather, phenomena are material entanglements enfolded and threaded through the spacetimemattering of the universe.’
So the moment of Hendrix’s performance at Woodstock was captured on film, it wasn’t just the event itself that was documented, it encapsulated the historical context, the energy of the crowd, the significance of the Vietnam War, the way Jimi’s hands interacted with his guitar— all these elements were enfolded into the new phenomenon created by the recording device and came to matter to me in a living room 11 years after that initial moment.
And the rockets’ red glare,
The bombs bursting in air…
Inside those objective articulations produced by Hendrix’s hands, that day was the enfolded history of not only his generation but also the horror of colonial conquest, the silencing, and annihilation of great Indigenous cultures, and the pillage of natural resources for private gain. Yet, also enfolded within those articulations were the beauty of the human spirit, the magnificence of the American dream, and the universal spirit embodied in the particular expressions of music — the deep-seated need for connection with others.
Hendrix’s performance was not just an expression but a gift akin to the Indigenous peoples’ understanding in the Pacific Northwest — a gift that transcends commodification and alienation. As Mauss wrote in The Gift, ‘It is wrong to speak here of alienation, for these things are loaned rather than sold and ceded.’ This gift establishes a contract across time and space, a discursive material entanglement ‘enfolded and threaded through the spacetimemattering of the universe,’ as Barad would say.
Finding My Groove: Early Lessons and Miami’s Influence
I began drum lessons at seven, three years after that important moment in my living room. In addition to learning the rudiments and reading music, I quickly took to playing along to my father’s record collection, which included the Rolling Stones, Frank Zappa, Mahavishnu Orchestra, the Beatles, and, of course, The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
When choosing a college, I decided on the University of Miami School of Music, renowned for its prestigious jazz program. I was immediately immersed in a competitive yet encouraging environment. Alongside a full course load, I practiced relentlessly — at least eight hours daily, every day. My drum professor recognized my dedication, who recommended me for an audition with Josh Smith, a child prodigy guitarist whose management was looking for a young drummer for his first national tour over the summer break. To my surprise, I got the gig and found myself on the road at age 18, playing original blues tunes and covering Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan songs every night.
After completing the tour, I returned to Miami, where I continued to gig regularly, playing 15 to 20 nights a month while maintaining a full course load. My passion and work ethic didn’t go unnoticed. I was eventually granted 24-hour access to a special practice room — a privilege that further fueled my development as a musician, especially since the regular practice rooms closed at midnight, a point of contention throughout my four years there. During my final year, a classmate of mine, Brendan Buckley, was selected to be the drummer for a new singer-songwriter preparing for her first world tour — Shakira. Brendan called me to sub for the bands he was playing with locally, further entrenching me in the Miami rock and indie rock scene, which paid dividends years into the future.
My plan after graduating was to move to Manhattan and try to secure gigs at the 55 Bar with guitarists like Wayne Krantz and Mike Stern. Wayne Krantz’s album 2 Drink Minimum was on constant rotation on my Walkman, and for my senior recital, I even transcribed the song “Whippersnapper,” with assistance from the guitarist I was working with, and performed it.
Serendipity and Portland’s Unexpected Opportunities
But as fate — or the wake of the spacetimemattering of the universe — would have it, I serendipitously met an experimental electronic musician playing in a coffee shop (back when live music was common in such places). We played a few gigs together, and after he moved to Portland, Oregon, he invited me to join him. Drawn by the opportunity to explore west coast, I found myself in the Pacific Northwest, in a cheap and funky city, where I quickly immersed myself in the local music scene, securing gigs within my first week.
One day, I noticed a missed call from an unknown number on the very first cell phone I ever owned. The voicemail was from a guitarist who was on break from touring with George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic. He mentioned that he had a gig in Portland in a week at a place called Dante’s, and that someone gave him my number and he needed a drummer — could I do the gig? After a brief conversation where I gave him my address so he could send me the tunes I needed to learn on a CD, the day of the gig arrived.
Ironically, the CDs arrived in the mail the Monday after the gig. But that didn’t stop Eric McFadden and the bass player he hired from Seattle, James Whiton, from sitting in the green room and writing out two dozen charts of his original songs and a few covers, including Hendrix. That one gig led to a multi-year collaboration, and six months later, during our first national tour, we found ourselves landing in Seattle.
Completing the Circuit - A Handshake Across Time
The morning after we played a gig in Eastlake, Seattle, at a now-closed venue called Café Venus & The Mars Bar, the bass player and I, fairly hungover, were walking from his house toward a small coffee shop on a nearby business strip. On our way, he suggested, ‘Hey, let’s cut through this alley instead of going around the block, the coffee shop is just on the other side.’
As we walked down the alley, we noticed two people standing and chatting. James suddenly recognized one of them and said, ‘Oh, hey, that’s my buddy who owns a tiny recording studio in the back of this building. He’s probably with a client.’ We walked up to them, and James introduced me to his friend. Then his friend said, ‘Hey, this is Leon, he’s in the studio today overdubbing some guitar.”
I shook his hand, and it was like an atom bomb went off in my head. There were those hands — not Jimi’s, but his younger brother’s, Leon Hendrix.
They so perfectly matched my primordial memory, etched into my being, that everything after that moment is a complete blank. I have no memory of whether we made it to that coffee shop or what else happened that day
The Thick Now: Entangling Time, Space, and Memory
Karen Barad, in a lecture I stumbled upon, explains:
In her amazing novella From Trinity to Trinity, Kyōko Hayashi provides us with a time-hopping tale, bodily tracing the entanglements of the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, back to Trinity Site and the bombing of Indigenous lands…the entanglements between uranium mining on Navajo lands in the U.S. Southwest and the ongoingness of U.S. settler colonialism on Native lands.
This ongoingness is not a thing of the past but alive in the thick now of the present. This is very powerful imiagry, which she continues:
The material entanglements of the bombs dropped on Japan reached to the continent of Africa and what has become the global uranium trade. Gabrielle Hecht traces these material entanglements — the uranium for the Hiroshima bomb came from the Belgian Congo. In any given year of the Cold War, between a fifth and a half of the world’s uranium came from Africa.
Barad argues that this instrumental and alienated modern process of global commodity trade can be countered through a Neo-Bohrian onto-epistemological understanding offered by quantum physics, which:
…champions the undoing of homogeneous empty time in multiple ways. This is one of its deconstructive seeds that undoes the alleged totality of globalism. Quantum physics blasts open the continuum of history, […] It opens up radical political possibilities and enlarges the space of agency, including understanding this moment here, now, to be a dense seed filled with other times and spaces. The past is alive in the thick now of the present — not merely as subjective personal experience or even only as social reality, but ontologically and materially.
But what is it about this thick time that is so important to understand and that often gets lost in our dualistic metaphysical constructs passed down from Plato?
Barad clarifies:
The point is not one of making analogies between the social world and the world of the atom. The point is what quantum physics tells us about what a point is. In this relational ontology, there is a strange topology, a world inside each point, each tiny bit, each moment. Quantum physics and Indigenous onto-epistemologies are not parallel stories; they are materially entangled, shot through with one another in the specific space-time matterings that constitute worlds. Not only is the bomb inside the atom, but so too is the land of Turtle Island, its people, and other lands. And so too are the space-time story-theory doings of Indigenous peoples.
The hand I shook that day in a random alley in Seattle while on tour felt like an agential cut through thick time, connecting me back to the moment I sat in my living room next to my father, watching a VHS tape of Jimi Hendrix’s hands creating those most beautiful and terrifying sounds during his rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock — a performance my father had witnessed in person 11 years earlier. In that handshake, all the stories I wove through my productive endeavors to learn and hone the craft of playing the drums, the imperative to give back to the universe what was given to me on that otherwise unremarkable day on the eastern edge of Long Island, converged. The thick now of that moment, interwoven with the spacetimematterings of past, present, and future, held all those narratives — fears, triumphs, love, loss, happiness, beauty, terror, forgiveness, redemption — converging in the closing of a circuit that morning. It wasn’t just a subjective experience, but an ontological intertwining of histories, materialities, and possibilities.