2025 Happy New Year! Well Not So Much…At Least So Far.

It’s been a very long time since I wrote a blog post. I’ve been busy with challenges of various types: medical, personal, economic, and now a natural disaster declaration — the Palisades fire. I visited the site of fire today. The entire community is gone. Almost every house on every block is pile of ash, pipes, and usually a brick chimney. The home that my wife and I purchased 25 years ago, the home that we raised out children in and that I have spend the past few years upgrading and remodeling after a water leak is gone. On the evening of January 7. 2025 while I was skiing in Colorado, I learned that a brushfire had broken out. Similar fires alerts have happened in the past but they never came south of Sunset Boulevard. One fireman that I spoke to was astounded that the fire reached the bluffs just above the ocean. But it did. The damage is unbelievable.

It took over two weeks to gain access to the property. Hours of waiting online, a police escort, and a slow drive through an unrecognizable, burned out landscape. There nothing left. All of our most important things are gone — artwork, videotapes, letters, pictures, musical instruments, and collectibles. But among the losses are the a large portion of the AIX Records catalog and hundreds of copies of my first book (it remains to be seen whether I have the new book backed up in the cloud).

I had also moved a lot of my equipment to the house. Recently a gentleman from Nashville contacted me about acquiring my cherished Euphonix System 5 console. So loaded the modules, computer, auxiliary components, and frame into my Audi Q5 and brought them home. I also brought home most of my signal processors, DACs, Benchmark headphone amp, and a collection of my remaining microphones. They’re all burned beyond recognition. Even my cherished Nagra IV-S and the large reel adaptor QGB are no more. Not to mention all of the source tapes.

All of my scores and recordings of my own compositions, all of my woodworking projects from the 1980s at CSUN, my Martin D-18 (which I purchased new from the Ann Arbor Folklore Center in 1971), and dozens of fine art prints and sculptures are also gone.

In a way, it feels like everything from my past has been erased. I have my memories but lost too many cherished — and irreplaceable — things to count.

We haven’t decided whether to try and rebuild our house. Maybe it would be better to sell the dirt to a developer and move on. It’s going to be many years until the community is back to the way it was…if it ever could be.

Many friends, family, and customers of AIX have reached out with notes of support and offers of assistance. We’ve initiated a GoFundMe campaign. If you would like to donate, please visit Help AIX Records Mark & Mona Waldrep Recover from Pali Fire

Thanks for your kind support.