Audio from this video transcribed below, also available as podcast audio here. This is the start of something new for me, so thanks for your patience.
Hi friends, it’s your pal Seth. Starting something a little new. I hate saying I’m starting something, because I see it so much online, where people start off saying they’re starting something, then two minutes later it ends. That’s me right now.
Because… I talked to so many good friends, creative individuals, talented individuals, people who know like, skill wise stuff, internet, and writing, and all of that, and people that want to get into something. “Oh, I want to do this, I want to start this.”
I’m always, Mr. “just do it! You can do it! Just start, just start!”
And I’ve been saying, and I bat this around in my head a lot, because I really like podcasts, and I like doing video, like as much as I say I like doing them, if I had been doing them since 2014 and 2015, I’d have a lot of videos and audio, and everything like that.
Here we are, this is me starting this. And this is me, too, this is not perfect. There’s not, I’m shooting this in one take, there’s not going to be a fancy infographic, there’s no bumper music, there’s no name, there’s no… just start.
Because I fully believe that the first thing that we all do, is gonna suck. It’s gonna be ass. And I think of so many of my talented friends, photographers and musicians and writers, yeah, probably all our first things sucked. The guitar players I know, the singers I know; sucked. Sorry.
I’ve been playing bass since 1991, that shit sucked. And I think back, started a music blog in 2001, those first few posts sucked.
I want to say too, that, I remember when I started Buzzgrinder I remember i wanted to completely remove me from the news. I wanted it to be, band said this, that’s it, out.
And I realized, like, in this time that we have, with podcasts, with video, with music, I mean with a laptop now, we have the ability to write complete songs, without even having an instrument, which is great, which is amazing. Given how we all have laptops, now, and computers, access to them, which is awesome, but so much of that is… there’s no us in that. There’s no voice in it. There’s no us, which I think is a shame, because… I mean, I know there’s a time and a place for this, but I think with the amount of music that we’re able to make, I think putting “us” in more of this, and that’s what I did with Buzzgrinder, over the years ago… we put ourselves in it, we wrote dumb headlines and made fun of bands and stuff, because no one else was really doing that at the time. Talking 2003, 2004, 2005, and shit, and that got me where I am today in 2019.
What works for me, may not work for you, but what I mean is to put yourself out there, your face, because and again, getting back to why I’m starting this, and being imperfect, being not planned, being spontaneous, you don’t know where that ends. And if we continue to wait til it’s perfect, and researched, and right, and done, and get the domain name, and make sure we have the social media accounts, we’re putting so much of the cart before the horse, when in fact we just need to do it.
The idea, too, I see it so often, of like, “just fail!” Just fail all the time! And it’s not, this is not failing, in that this is seeing what works. This is free, this is absolutely free. I have the phone, I have the internet, and I’m going to be able to put this online, and it’s a free test, it’s free market research, it’s free whatever. I don’t need 100 subscribers tomorrow, I don’t need 10.. I just need to put it out there for me, because I want to have this, I want to…
My ultimate thing would be to go and hangout with friends all the time. I deeply mourn that I was not able to get to Migration Fest last year, and see so many beautiful wonderful people, and have my heart burst with these amazing people. It just didn’t work out last year.
All that to say, I just want to be around good people, I want to vibe with good people, I want to just put my energy into a space where those people exist as well. Because then we embolden each other to do amazing cool things. I see friends of mine on Instagram posting amazing art, building stuff, making amazing photographs, being brave, and just putting this stuff out there.
Years ago I used to think, this was a naive view I had, because I grew up in PA, moved to NYC in 2004, and… this sounds so stupid, but I was like, I don’t understand street art. It’s beautiful, but where’s the domain name? Where’s the click here for more? But it’s not that, it’s not for that, it’s not for building, or brand awareness, it’s for fucking permission. To inspire, and when you look up and see crazy stuff, in crazy locations, hopefully that makes you think like wow, if that person could get up there, and do that, put their lives on the line, and their freedom to evade police, well maybe i can click record on my laptop and record a song. Or maybe I could draw something and maybe be brave today and snap a photo and put it on Instagram.
And that’s where shit starts. As much as I have shit on social media in the past few years, just because of how much of a cesspool and a sewer it can all be, I also believe that, well, fuck that. That gives the win to the trolls and the haters, and the garbage. And no, my friends are there, and I want to be around my friends.
In closing, where does this go? I don’t know. Is this even episode one? I guess we need to classify it as such, of the SETH W TALKING INTO A PHONE SHOW, I’ll think of a better name, or you can suggest one.
All that to say, please start. Don’t be disheartened. Keep making music. Please keep posting it. Be scared, because putting stuff out there is damn scary, and people can say mean things, but the people saying mean things aren’t making things, so who cares? Make things, because then other people that makes things, that might be right at that level, there’s not way up, there’s on the same wavelength, trying to figure it out, I don’t know if I should put my stuff out there, I don’t know if I should put my music to SoundCloud, or put my photos on Instagram, they’re gonna see it, and that’s energy. That’s good. Then they’re going to put stuff up, because we’re all coming up in this together. In this new everything, and we are in a new everything right now, in 2019. We’re all trying to figure this out. Freelancers, artists, musicians, all trying to figure this out.
So put your stuff out there, just keep putting it out there, why not? It’s free. I mean don’t, I guess if you want to take a picture of fecal matter, and post it somewhere, sure, that’s disgusting, I should edit this out, I’m not going to. Yeah, put yourself out there, don’t be disheartened, don’t hold back, why hold back? It’s free to post this stuff everywhere, and for every 10 people that even like it, there’s probably 25 people that do like it and just haven’t hit that heart, or like, or replied, so keep putting your stuff up.
Don’t let fear, don’t let that rejection, just keep making and disengage with people that don’t make, and just leave comments, and are negative, because we ain’t got time for that.
