J. Armand Stofko

I'm a writer and musician from the Eastern Shore of Maryland & Delaware. I want to create as much content as possible before the world ends so the Aliens have something to remember us by. DIY/Lo-Fi Music. The Opiate Epidemic. Aestheticism. I wrote for the Metropolitan Magazine & was an editor for Echoes & Visions, my colleges' literary journal. I was in the band The Inflatable Lovers with Steven Olischar & Jeremy Ray. The cities by me have become quite the undesirable state; Baltimore, DC, Wilmington (DE), Dover. I wasn't cut from a rural cloth but find myself slipping into reclusion when the nearby hubs contain the rot they do. I'm not misanthropic but the horrendous hood esoteric trap music that blares from the locales in which people my age frequent in this generalized area drives me from their numbers. I do love the ocean though. It always being a short drive away my entire life even when it's cold has defined some of who I am. Ocean City & Berlin in the fall & winter are beyond beautiful. I spent my entire life getting good at something no one cares about. (The composition of indie rock/folk/avant-garde songs, trying to combine poetry with sound.) I wish I had spent my 10,000 hours on filmmaking instead but I didn't choose to write songs, it's a compulsion. I also write about mental health. Depression & anxiety. OCD, ADD, PTSD, suicidal ideation & addictions. I don't like my generations fascination with taking so many pictures of themselves but I myself am guilty of liking to see myself in a photo here & there just to confirm that I'm still here. As well as because old age is just around the bend and I want to have documentation of my younger days, to which hopefully one day I'll look back & say "If I only knew then what I know now."