The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Dan Simone of Slow Wake, Black Spirit Crown & Ohio Doomed and Stoned Fest

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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

Musically, I want to create songs that are both devastatingly heavy, and astonishingly beautiful. Avalanches of sound that smash the side of the mountain to dust, and reveal glittering veins of precious metal and gemstones in the strata beneath the surface. I also love the underground stoner/doom/etc scene and the people that are immersed in it.

I came to the scene late, starting my first band Black Spirit Crown in 2016. Pretty soon after that I found the Doomed and Stoned community while trying to network and figure out where in the world of music we would fit in. Billy (Goate, Doomed and Stoned Executive Editor) was looking for people to help with his series of “Doomed and Stoned in …” Compilations and I volunteered to do one for Ohio because I was starting to discover all of these killer bands around me and felt like they really needed to be heard by a wider audience.

I organized 45 bands and suddenly I had networked most of the state of Ohio. After that, inspired by the Doomed and Stoned Indy Fests, it seemed like the next thing to do was put together a fest and have a huge party with all of these rad people and bands I had met. So I organized the first Ohio Doomed and Stoned Fest in the summer of 2018. My mission with that is to shine a light on the incredible bands in Ohio, and get them all together with some excellent bands from beyond the region and have everyone rock out. It will aways be a curated selection of about 60% Ohio bands mixed with an amazing selection of out of state acts chosen to show as wide a cross section as possible from the genres that Doomed and Stoned is about.

Describe your first musical memory.

When I was in elementary school being super irritated at my dad while he played guitar along to Allman Brothers Band records after I was put to bed. I was sleepy!

Describe your best musical memory to date.

The Cleveland date of the last Monolord tour was just incredible. Can’t even say why, it just blew me away.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

My father was a minister so I was raised in the protestant church. I’d say back in middle school in the 80’s when I saw people in our church viciously celebrating the AIDS epidemic and the toll it was reaping on the LGBTQ+ and black communities. I had good friends who were just figuring out their sexuality and plenty of friends of color and it just devestated me that people I’d grown up respecting and trusting on issues of morality, etc. could be so horribly ecstatic at the idea of people like my friends dying.

My beliefs in christianity were sorely tested, and they broke. Thankfully my father was never like that, and he didn’t try to force me back in to the fold either.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

Endlessly onward. I don’t think artists ever arrive at the end of their artistic journey. One of the most incredible things about humanity is the sheer amount of ways we’ve developed to express ourselves. I was immeresed in the arts growing up, both of my parents were visual artists and musicians, my mother taught art for many years, I ran an art gallery until recently. In both the visual arts and musical arts you see people who either focus on one medium (or instrument) or people who range across many mediums (or instruments). I think in both cases the artist is constantly striving to perfect their means of expression, and I don’t think it’s possible.

How do you explain happiness or anger to someone else. It can be done in vague terms, certainly the person you’re explaining to has experienced these emotions, but I know my anger is very different than my wife’s, for example. And her idea of happiness is different than mine (oddly enough it doesn’t involve large amplifiers and lots of effects pedals). How can any of us ever perfectly understand another point of view? It’s impossible. There’s a quote out there I’m about to mangle, “(Visual) Art is how we capture emotions in space, Music is how we capture emotions in time”. The artist is forever compelled to progress along the path of expression, but doomed to never reach the end, because there is no end.

How do you define success?

I love it when a plan comes together.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

People die.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

Musically I’m excited about the continuing development of the sounds of both Black Spirit Crown and Slow Wake, so I’m very stoked about the songs we’ll be creating. Artistically, I’ve been concepting a series of large drawings of mythological beings in colored pencil. Someday…

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

As I said before, expressing emotions.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

Spending as many summer evenings as possible on the patio with my wife this year. We spent all last summer building it, this year we sit.

https://www.facebook.com/slowwakeband
https://www.instagram.com/slowwakeband/
https://slowwake.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/BlackSpiritCrown/
https://www.instagram.com/bscdoom/
https://blackspiritcrown.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ohiodoomedandstonedfest/
https://www.facebook.com/events/626031698457271

Slow Wake, Falling Fathoms (2022)

Black Spirit Crown, Gravity (2022)