Welcome to Signal Chain
Reports from the middle distance between youth and old age.
This is Signal Chain, a newsletter about living in the middle distance between youth and old age.
In audio production, a “signal chain” is the order of devices between an instrument (such as a guitar) and its ultimate output (such as an amp). The sound is affected by the number, order, and quality of these devices. Signals can be purposely clarified or distorted as part of the signal chain, and they can also be inadvertently impacted by any link in the chain.
While a signal chain doesn’t define the type of music, it does influence how that music is created and perceived.
In the signal chain of thoughts, meaning can be purposely or accidentally changed from the time it starts in the head to when it is written, published, and then read, especially when influenced by time and memory.
As an 80’s kid and a member of the Generation X / elder millennial collective, I’m in middle age now. I’m young enough to still have days where I feel 19 and old enough to have days when I can’t even grasp the memory of that age.
So Signal Chain is about anything, but everything will be filtered through the chain of time and memory from youth to middle age. In a world that has gone from analog to digital and from prosperity to listlessness.
✌️
Jason Clarke
Orono, Maine
January 20, 2026
SIGNAL CHAIN MIX CD
Toda'ys song is Where is My Mind? by Pixies and released in 1988. Despite its impact being dampened by too many appearances in movies, TV, and even commercials, this song is still a Gen X classic.
Where Is My Mind?
Pixies, Surfer Rosa, 1988