When I think about the concept and i try to find a title i draw blank... a blank that is like a pit that reads like a history of defeat.
You see i applied for a few Music opportunities because fate sent them my way, and in the end one slips back into the role of trying to sound polished and together and on the way up... The usual bull shit PR machine that i have always taken a natural loathing to.
In the last 2 years i have made no effort to promote or play my music to anybody, and it has been a great run, i still make music but i don't really hang out with people who do anymore, which means i have been totally free of spirit crushing world that is "getting ahead in the business". None the less, this year i thew my hat in a couple of rings
The first one was a festival in Chile that missed the plate. I applied with a woman who has sang with me several times and is originally from the town in which the festival is located. She was eager and who am i to stomp on kindled excitement... I said "lets do it", found positives and started saying things like "if you don't apply then you for sure won't get in... you need to ask for things in life". I got positive and set to work on getting it done, as did she of course. In the end the day passed and we heard nothing, it is what it is. She remarked that they could have sent an email out thanking those who had applied... She is a wonderful woman, but that was funny for me. In the music business nobody stops by the losers club to have a drink and thank people for trying. Not in this world old sport, they cling to the tail of the winners.
The second one is a different animal all together... a high fastball over my plate, a competition that asks for the exact song i have already written. The song even came to me in a dream years ago in a deep afternoon nap after work and before music time. I haven't had many songs come out of dreams, and never one that was so clear. It was in a classroom and the teacher was strumming an auto harp, and my view was panning back into the distance and the whole class of kids were singing the song... or at lest repeating the chorus. I woke up in a weird sweat and jotted the number down, and just put it in the bank to take stabs at in time. The song later became a classic number to do at the Super Robertson Supper Show for years being requested often, and an inside joke (between audience and band) of trying to get as many bass solos in as possible. I must have had a hundred people tell me that that song should be on Hockey Night in Canada, and why haven't i sent it to them, funny stuff.
So here we go, the CBC songquest for the fall 2013 is to search for the ultimate Canadian Hockey Song, and it's free to apply, but there is a cost... promotion on social media. Once again i say to myself "if you don't try you will never succeed, i need a hat in that ring".
I don't play lotteries... firstly i am against voluntary taxes, but really the real danger is sitting around imagining if you won. This is a serious disease in humankind, i use to buy a lottery ticket and my brain would always spend time thinking about what might happen. Your mind focused on something that is not going to happen, and not working on what you are really doing. Clearly the lottery is an extreme example, but it illustrates the point... you buy the lottery ticket because you want financial freedom and then you spend your time dreaming about financial freedom and doing nothing to really achieve the goal, which you might be able to do through lifestyle discipline.
What i love about music is playing, listening and creating it. What i hate about music is trying to promote it to a grossly over-stocked marketplace where connections will get you the easy traction.
I will resist hating other entries, and i say that with an honest heart... as a natural fierce competitor the natural place is to think you have the best entry and everybody else is a fraud. I'm telling you, i have been around this game a long time and that's what happens. Comment threads are great for that... people losing their minds and straight up calling their song the best. I think about the science of that... As a songwriter you are putting your ego in net (hockey analogy sounds good right) and letting it get shelled with pucks from all manor of social media sharing adventures. There is a counter right there, it says how many people have listened to your song, you know you have to get more listens to "get noticed". The big thing of course is that nobody really cares about your little song, and that's cool, people like famous songs, from famous people, and you end up in a box. You are forced to try to promote it and if you fail to do so to the level that will "get you noticed", then you have failed.
Don't worry about me and failure, I have a decent relationship with it, penning a few numbers on the issue. In fact, in the song "Failure" i kind of celebrate it... some have found it negative but i don't see it that way. Take the classic inventor who fails a thousand times before he gets it right and the point is that he or she stayed on task. But this is the weird one when you talk about artistic failure... artistic successes are often judged by commerce or fame, which is the thing you spend time chasing after the art is completed. Hence, when the art is done then you do the work that relies on your ability to have a different set of skills altogether. These skills i have not, in fact i believe history has shown that my efforts often have an opposite effect on the desired goal. I believe i am misunderstood, but that's life, in fact many people who have known me for over a decade don't even know what my given name is, my bad, I'm responsible... who can take a person seriously who doesn't take himself seriously, as the image portrayed suggests. Now without getting into too large of a self dissecting psychoanalysis on the Internet in a blog that started out with the idea of trying to drum up support for a cause that would make me happy as a pig in shit to be part of, lets move on.
Like deleting the last paragraph would be a good start of course, but then it would be like saying that doesn't exist, and would miss the point altogether, that's why i couldn't think of a title.
That said, i wrote the song "Bold Point Road" because the CBC songquest series that year was "Songs about Canadian Roads", again i fell on deaf ears with respect to the songs collected, but i got one of by better numbers written as a result, and I'll take that trade off any day.
For the record, the hockey song is here.
You see i applied for a few Music opportunities because fate sent them my way, and in the end one slips back into the role of trying to sound polished and together and on the way up... The usual bull shit PR machine that i have always taken a natural loathing to.
In the last 2 years i have made no effort to promote or play my music to anybody, and it has been a great run, i still make music but i don't really hang out with people who do anymore, which means i have been totally free of spirit crushing world that is "getting ahead in the business". None the less, this year i thew my hat in a couple of rings
The first one was a festival in Chile that missed the plate. I applied with a woman who has sang with me several times and is originally from the town in which the festival is located. She was eager and who am i to stomp on kindled excitement... I said "lets do it", found positives and started saying things like "if you don't apply then you for sure won't get in... you need to ask for things in life". I got positive and set to work on getting it done, as did she of course. In the end the day passed and we heard nothing, it is what it is. She remarked that they could have sent an email out thanking those who had applied... She is a wonderful woman, but that was funny for me. In the music business nobody stops by the losers club to have a drink and thank people for trying. Not in this world old sport, they cling to the tail of the winners.
The second one is a different animal all together... a high fastball over my plate, a competition that asks for the exact song i have already written. The song even came to me in a dream years ago in a deep afternoon nap after work and before music time. I haven't had many songs come out of dreams, and never one that was so clear. It was in a classroom and the teacher was strumming an auto harp, and my view was panning back into the distance and the whole class of kids were singing the song... or at lest repeating the chorus. I woke up in a weird sweat and jotted the number down, and just put it in the bank to take stabs at in time. The song later became a classic number to do at the Super Robertson Supper Show for years being requested often, and an inside joke (between audience and band) of trying to get as many bass solos in as possible. I must have had a hundred people tell me that that song should be on Hockey Night in Canada, and why haven't i sent it to them, funny stuff.
So here we go, the CBC songquest for the fall 2013 is to search for the ultimate Canadian Hockey Song, and it's free to apply, but there is a cost... promotion on social media. Once again i say to myself "if you don't try you will never succeed, i need a hat in that ring".
I don't play lotteries... firstly i am against voluntary taxes, but really the real danger is sitting around imagining if you won. This is a serious disease in humankind, i use to buy a lottery ticket and my brain would always spend time thinking about what might happen. Your mind focused on something that is not going to happen, and not working on what you are really doing. Clearly the lottery is an extreme example, but it illustrates the point... you buy the lottery ticket because you want financial freedom and then you spend your time dreaming about financial freedom and doing nothing to really achieve the goal, which you might be able to do through lifestyle discipline.
What i love about music is playing, listening and creating it. What i hate about music is trying to promote it to a grossly over-stocked marketplace where connections will get you the easy traction.
I will resist hating other entries, and i say that with an honest heart... as a natural fierce competitor the natural place is to think you have the best entry and everybody else is a fraud. I'm telling you, i have been around this game a long time and that's what happens. Comment threads are great for that... people losing their minds and straight up calling their song the best. I think about the science of that... As a songwriter you are putting your ego in net (hockey analogy sounds good right) and letting it get shelled with pucks from all manor of social media sharing adventures. There is a counter right there, it says how many people have listened to your song, you know you have to get more listens to "get noticed". The big thing of course is that nobody really cares about your little song, and that's cool, people like famous songs, from famous people, and you end up in a box. You are forced to try to promote it and if you fail to do so to the level that will "get you noticed", then you have failed.
Don't worry about me and failure, I have a decent relationship with it, penning a few numbers on the issue. In fact, in the song "Failure" i kind of celebrate it... some have found it negative but i don't see it that way. Take the classic inventor who fails a thousand times before he gets it right and the point is that he or she stayed on task. But this is the weird one when you talk about artistic failure... artistic successes are often judged by commerce or fame, which is the thing you spend time chasing after the art is completed. Hence, when the art is done then you do the work that relies on your ability to have a different set of skills altogether. These skills i have not, in fact i believe history has shown that my efforts often have an opposite effect on the desired goal. I believe i am misunderstood, but that's life, in fact many people who have known me for over a decade don't even know what my given name is, my bad, I'm responsible... who can take a person seriously who doesn't take himself seriously, as the image portrayed suggests. Now without getting into too large of a self dissecting psychoanalysis on the Internet in a blog that started out with the idea of trying to drum up support for a cause that would make me happy as a pig in shit to be part of, lets move on.
Like deleting the last paragraph would be a good start of course, but then it would be like saying that doesn't exist, and would miss the point altogether, that's why i couldn't think of a title.
That said, i wrote the song "Bold Point Road" because the CBC songquest series that year was "Songs about Canadian Roads", again i fell on deaf ears with respect to the songs collected, but i got one of by better numbers written as a result, and I'll take that trade off any day.
For the record, the hockey song is here.
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