© Copyright Clive Young

From Icon Thoughtstyle, October, 1998.

SONIC TRASH
Darren Atkinson has put so much effort into cobbling together his recording studio from garbage that he barely has time to use it.

By Clive Young

"I'm not supposed to be here."

"Here" is a business park on the outskirts of Toronto, and "here" is where Daren Atkinson makes his living.

Every night, Atkinson, 31, takes his decommissioned police paddy wagon and spends five hours looking inside 60 to 70 dumpsters, sifting though the industrial detritus of Canada. A friend introduced him to trash picking five years ago, and Atkinson says he was hooked from that first night when he uncovered a vintage Ampeg guitar amplifier. Over the next 18 months, Atkinson cut back on his day job delivering parcels, eventually quitting to scavenge full-time.

Ironically, trash prospecting provided a much-needed focus. "Throughout my life, there's been a series of failures or situations of resistance," he admits. "I see it almost humorously." Atkinson played drums for local bands during a short stint at college that ended when he left to play music on a low-budget comedy, Fireballs. After the film tanked, he found himself in Lima, Peru as the soundman for a rainforest documentary. That was followed by a Quixotic trip to England, where he hoped to audition for The Who (he didn't). Atkinson soon gave up drumming altogether and built a small demo studio. But once he discovered the joys of garbage prospecting, that facility took on a whole new life.

Trash picking is not without its risks; police have stopped Atkinson nearly 200 times.

Gomi Studios, aptly named after the Japanese word for "trash," is full of ex-garbage--from the couch to the doors to tape machines. When studio gear distributors throw out broken sound effect processors, Atkinson grabs them, putting them aside until he has enough of the same model to cobble together one processor that works. Rescued Persian rugs cover a floor of found ceramic tiles used to create natural resonance while recording. The mirrored studio window came from a construction site, the snake cables from a demolished TV studio and even the wall murals were painted with supplies from an outdoor advertising company. Atkinson's latest addition: a video editing suite that came from a trade for his stash of laserprinter toner cartridges.

Indeed, most of Atkinson's pickings are either traded or sold to surplus stores. Half the job, he says, is knowing what to look for. "If I just pull the head off a high-speed printer, it's worth $40," he notes. A dumpster filled with dozens of brand-new, boxed mufflers can prove just as valuable as one filled with hundreds of monochrome laptop screens--both can be converted into money. Taken together, a slew of such finds led to the outright purchase of a new $10,000 Yamaha digital recording console. Right now, Atkinson estimates his studio's worth at $75,000 to $100,000.

Perhaps his best finds, though, are from 1960s mainframe computers. "I've found ceramic boards with 10 ounces of gold for contacts, because it was $60 an ounce then." Of course, precious metals don't turn up every day. "It takes patience, and not putting a timeline on your desires," he says.

Trash picking is not without its risks, however: Police have stopped Atkinson nearly 200 times. Scavenging, howver, falls under a gray area of Canadian law, somewhere between the rules for trespassing and abandonded property. He's been taken into custody twice, but has yet to be charged with any crime. "You keep your cool," he advises, "and eventually they let you go."

More frustrating, however, is the occupation's inherent isolation. "It's hard keeping my personal links to people healthy, 'cause their timetables are different." That includes his girlfriend, who initially had doubts about his quirky occupation, though he says she's "learned to accept it."

Dumpster prospecting is a solitary business, but it gives Atkinson ample time to think--and sometimes it coughs up the technology he needs to carry his ideas to completion. For instance, he recently broadcast over the Internet a series of concerts from local clubs. A wireless transmission rack sent audio and video back to Gomi Studio's mainframe computer where it was uploaded to his website. Now Atkinson plans to start a band (to be named Gomi, of course) whose members will wear video cameras that will transmit a real-time documentary to the website. Websurfers would see concerts from the band's POV as well as "people backstage taking your beer, or the club owner saying he's not gonna pay you."

For now, Atkinson has a thornier problem than stolen beer: namely, there's no time for his big plans. Finishing the studio is still the top priority, but it's becoming a task rather than a pleasure. "It can be mundane or boring, and occasionally I feel I'm letting musical opportunities go past me," he admits. "The studio's 90 percent there, but when you're building with garbage, the closer you get, the harder it is to finish because either you spend money or you have to wait to find what you need. It takes patience."