I remember when i use to write blogs about nothing... what was i going to say... i don't know, i guess i would figure it out after a few pecks. Pecks of course was a shot at my typing ability. I had a band and a website that i thought needed content for some reason... it's one of the few things i had right in the music business... keep something going to bring people back to the website so you can sell sell sell. Of course we couldn't sell things on the site back then, you couldn't even put music on the site or video back then. You could put a link to your MP3.com site of your CBC ZED site and hope for the best. I also wanted to learn how to write, and the way i learn things is by doing them. No doubt i was literacy impaired at the time, significantly more than i am at this point in my life, and i took some heat but it didn't really matter to me, because i knew i had to get better. As much as i was doing right by adding content i was doing wrong by exposing weakness, but i have never been one for business models.
I hate business models because they focus on monetary profit often at the cost of the long term health of the system. And since the system is me and i value my health over my fame or my bottom line financially it was an easy choice. Music and art is a therapy and hobby and a chance to connect with other "like" or not "like" minded people. I got a steady day job before ever venturing into the "game" and saved my money so i didn't have to be molded into something i was not in order to survive. Perhaps that was a mistake and maybe the idea was to go "all in" and figure out a way to win at "the game". I was just never much of a gambler, and i liked eating and sleeping in warm clean beds, and i could even argue that i was in a position to "gamble" more on stage because i could afford to lose... if you know what i mean.
There is a guy who has sold a lot of records who came to some of my shows and enjoyed them immensely telling me "i love watching you because you can do what i can't". I can live with that. In some ways i kind of feel sorry for people trapped by their success... the mind can be a big place if the imagination is free, but if the imagination has an accountant putting up walls finding "sweet spots" i can see how that might be frustrating.
Competition is a weird thing in the "music community", and yes i scoff at that statement... every music scene is like a replay of Lord of the Flies. The margin for success is so thin that you need every advantage, people do it without even knowing they are doing it.
I have been on serious music scene hiatus for a couple and a half years... now just an observer of things, releasing songs quietly from time to time, but more interested in watching things from afar. I lack nothing in life essentials and really on a financial scale i am rather well off, but i do long to make a difference in the world through art. Am i foolish enough to think that might happen? Of course I am. As unrealistic of a goal that is i will continue... now i won't sacrifice my well being or the well being of my family to make a "serious run at it"... but then again what is a "serious run at it"? There is art and there is the marketing of art... these are two different things. What if i told you i wrote and recorded a ball stomping anti war anthem, but it stopped no wars and made no profit... is it still a ball stomping anti war anthem?
So it stopped no wars and made no money and made no difference and wasn't heard... does that mean you should stop doing it? The business model would say yes but the fire that drives the artist would say no. What one do you listen to? I guess it depends on what raft you jumped on at the head of the river. My path is sealed... i choose to enjoy my music experience and not die under the weight of it's economic failure. It is the making of the music i enjoy, dialing the words just right... feeling the groove and running with it without the fear of failure.
Let's be honest, i have failed on some small levels, i have released thing that shouldn't have been released, but i needed to do that to truly understand why. Sometimes in life you are in situations that are the sum of a great many equations and the math just doesn't add up and you can choose to fold of put the cards on the table and take the heat. I come from a family of perfectionists and i grew up seeing the error of the perfectionist way... i probably went too far the other way with a mind to keep the ball rolling. Everybody has their way, and I'm stuck in mine so this is the way it will go. I like the analogy of the inventor who fails a thousand times before he is successful over the person who completes little for fear that it is not perfect.
When i look back on all of the songs and the records i think of the song "with a broken hand" which was a 4-track song that had me on piano (that i can't really play) with my hand in a cast (due to hockey injury). The song was recorded on the fly in an hour lyrics were written while bass was laid down... a nice little number where perfection was not the goal but rather getting it done was the answer. Sometimes i listen to that song and think with the wrong mindset that song could have been deleted from existence. I like the tune, and for me when i hear it i remember the moment in time and the feeling of what we thought we were doing... it's not a thing that commercial success or lack thereof can take from me because i am invested in the moment and not the critical or popular view of the product.
One thing now i practice now is compassion for famous people... it is so easy to hate and judge them and to ridicule the things that they do. The things they do are conditioned responses to market forces or insane outbursts caused mostly by the cages they are locked into. Of course i am a famous person myself... just on a smaller scale. Try being the only beard man at the baby group filled with grandmothers and nannies... maybe not fame but just that guy.
I hate business models because they focus on monetary profit often at the cost of the long term health of the system. And since the system is me and i value my health over my fame or my bottom line financially it was an easy choice. Music and art is a therapy and hobby and a chance to connect with other "like" or not "like" minded people. I got a steady day job before ever venturing into the "game" and saved my money so i didn't have to be molded into something i was not in order to survive. Perhaps that was a mistake and maybe the idea was to go "all in" and figure out a way to win at "the game". I was just never much of a gambler, and i liked eating and sleeping in warm clean beds, and i could even argue that i was in a position to "gamble" more on stage because i could afford to lose... if you know what i mean.
There is a guy who has sold a lot of records who came to some of my shows and enjoyed them immensely telling me "i love watching you because you can do what i can't". I can live with that. In some ways i kind of feel sorry for people trapped by their success... the mind can be a big place if the imagination is free, but if the imagination has an accountant putting up walls finding "sweet spots" i can see how that might be frustrating.
Competition is a weird thing in the "music community", and yes i scoff at that statement... every music scene is like a replay of Lord of the Flies. The margin for success is so thin that you need every advantage, people do it without even knowing they are doing it.
I have been on serious music scene hiatus for a couple and a half years... now just an observer of things, releasing songs quietly from time to time, but more interested in watching things from afar. I lack nothing in life essentials and really on a financial scale i am rather well off, but i do long to make a difference in the world through art. Am i foolish enough to think that might happen? Of course I am. As unrealistic of a goal that is i will continue... now i won't sacrifice my well being or the well being of my family to make a "serious run at it"... but then again what is a "serious run at it"? There is art and there is the marketing of art... these are two different things. What if i told you i wrote and recorded a ball stomping anti war anthem, but it stopped no wars and made no profit... is it still a ball stomping anti war anthem?
So it stopped no wars and made no money and made no difference and wasn't heard... does that mean you should stop doing it? The business model would say yes but the fire that drives the artist would say no. What one do you listen to? I guess it depends on what raft you jumped on at the head of the river. My path is sealed... i choose to enjoy my music experience and not die under the weight of it's economic failure. It is the making of the music i enjoy, dialing the words just right... feeling the groove and running with it without the fear of failure.
Let's be honest, i have failed on some small levels, i have released thing that shouldn't have been released, but i needed to do that to truly understand why. Sometimes in life you are in situations that are the sum of a great many equations and the math just doesn't add up and you can choose to fold of put the cards on the table and take the heat. I come from a family of perfectionists and i grew up seeing the error of the perfectionist way... i probably went too far the other way with a mind to keep the ball rolling. Everybody has their way, and I'm stuck in mine so this is the way it will go. I like the analogy of the inventor who fails a thousand times before he is successful over the person who completes little for fear that it is not perfect.
When i look back on all of the songs and the records i think of the song "with a broken hand" which was a 4-track song that had me on piano (that i can't really play) with my hand in a cast (due to hockey injury). The song was recorded on the fly in an hour lyrics were written while bass was laid down... a nice little number where perfection was not the goal but rather getting it done was the answer. Sometimes i listen to that song and think with the wrong mindset that song could have been deleted from existence. I like the tune, and for me when i hear it i remember the moment in time and the feeling of what we thought we were doing... it's not a thing that commercial success or lack thereof can take from me because i am invested in the moment and not the critical or popular view of the product.
One thing now i practice now is compassion for famous people... it is so easy to hate and judge them and to ridicule the things that they do. The things they do are conditioned responses to market forces or insane outbursts caused mostly by the cages they are locked into. Of course i am a famous person myself... just on a smaller scale. Try being the only beard man at the baby group filled with grandmothers and nannies... maybe not fame but just that guy.
