Tyson Meade

About “Robbing the Nuclear Family”

A note from Tyson…

You may wonder how the title came about for this album. My young friend Troy,
who figures heavily into the album as a guest vocalist and as subject matter, named
the album though he did not know it when he blurted it out. We were discussing my
romantic liaisons – boyfriends leaving girlfriends, husbands losing wives, sailors on
leave, injured Muay Thai boxer motorcycle boys.

“You’re not robbing the cradle. You’re robbing the nuclear family.” Troy exclaimed
after I told him. Immediately, I knew that would be the name of the album.
Our lives – memory, action, influence, reaction – are a series of up and down spirals,
moments of doubt and elation. Some of us – the ones who question the world
around them – are fringe dwellers, the outcasts of the empire. We question this
world because we do not fit into this world. This album is dedicated to those other
fringe dwellers and friends of fringe dwellers, those who want something beyond
reality TV, casino gambling, car payments, 401k, church on Sunday, family portraits
on the mantle.

Me the misfit, a dandy born on a farm, I navigated my way through tractors,
baseball, hunting and fishing. Art – Warhol, Rauschenberg, Pollack – and music – the
Beatles, Janis Joplin, Bowie, the New York Dolls, Melanie – saved me. Later literature
– Jean Genet, John Rechy, Salinger – gave me the affirmation that those around me
had seemingly found in their Judeo-Christian world in which I never belonged
because I am an outcast, a misfit, the boy who hid his Barbies in a dresser drawer in
his room. As children, my best friend found them, outed me.

But me, being observant, I saw cracks in the veneer of the nuclear family –
extramarital affairs, abuse, alcoholism, dark depressions, madness – because the
constraints of the nuclear family is nothing more than a straitjacket to those who
question their surroundings, those who don’t fit into those surroundings, who are
not sheep. These cracks and flaws I embrace as my identity. This album represents
these cracks and flaws that make us more than computers, robots, androids, data
punch operators.

Those of you who have been following me know that in my 30 plus years as an
artist, I have always stretched myself, going in new areas, going out of my comfort
zone, reaching for something new. This part of me has led me to live in China and
Saudi Arabia in search of new pathways to my art, in search of home. But then, more
about that later.

This album is my life and my view of life on parade, every crack and blemish proudly
metaphorically displayed. I have freed myself from the bondage of judgment of the
nuclear family. Thus I am robbing the nuclear family of their power over me.

Stay tuned for more details about the album and my life.

-Tyson Meade