I had such great ideas about what to write just a little while ago... and then I ran into a Facebook snag... A couple of quality chats none the less. And then just before coming here to do that thing I do for some reason, I went to the old Craigslist site and looked under events... I like to see what kind of events are posted being a man who has events and feels some basic promoter urges to get the word out. It can be a real complicated loop if you let it be... the key for me is to know why I am doing something and what I want out of it, and fortunately for me, what I want out of it seems to be the raw fact of doing it.
Anyhoo, one of the events posted was the opportunity to learn about the "Music Business" at Douglas Collage in a course. This course was offered years ago and I remember waffling with Roger Dean Young over whether we should take it or not. I decided to take it in some retarded wave of "I need to know this if I want to do this properly" mind sequence. So I signed up, paid with credit card and marked my first day of class on the calendar. Shortly before that day I suffered and incredible back injury... I was in agony and sitting was the worst thing... going to class would be not recommended , but when I sign up do do something I damn well do it (a trait my parents instilled in me).
I remember being on the Skytrain with my notebook and my spine in agony with every slight movement of the train... How could I survive this day? It was important... I make records and put them out for business.. I should know that business.
I got off and walked up the hill to the "college" and found my assigned classroom... It was empty. There was a math class going on across the hall but my class was empty... How could this be? Hey I'm a nice guy I'll just wait for a while... after half an hour i went down to the "Info booth" and their records showed just like mine that yes a class should be going on in that room right now... but it wasn't... I even went back up.
And then I went home... In a way mostly happy that I didn't have to spent the day in a chair.
A week later just before the second class I got a phone call telling me the class has been canceled due to lack of interest... I mentioned that I was aware of this fact already and that the call was a week late... there was indifference on the other end of the line.
So I did learn a lot: When you are trying to make it in the music business nobody gives a rat's ass about you... you are in a classified group of consumers who can be parted with your money with the hope that one can help you succeed... and if there aren't enough of you to fill the coffers on any given venture then fuck off until next time.
That's the raw truth of the music business... if anything has ruined music it's business, and we all know that's true. So if you are going to go to a class to teach you how to change to fall in line with a system... I say, you might be better off going to the casino because in the casino they will always welcome you.
It was shortly after my brush with Douglas College that I considered quitting music all together, and I was very serious about that... But the fact was that I wasn't thinking right. I was thinking about the music business and what a cold self serving, "you want this opportunity pay me" horse shit vibe that i was sick of.
So I had to ask myself "why do i play music?", because it's fun and I feel good doing it and I like a lot of the songs that I come up with. So why not do that, and embrace that, and grow that... I went to a club and pitched a show I wanted to do, the club agreed and I showed up every week for the last 6 years and am still figuring out what it is I mean to do... People come and people go, and in the end it's all just memories.
Last week I got to play with Lewis Melville by following my heart:
