Writer, musician, wizardly guide to platform independence
“What’s it for?”
Good question posed by a good friend. You don’t go skiing so you can win an Olypimic downhill event. You’re just fucking skiing.
This is for someone who wants to make music but doesn’t know where to start. This starts the conversation. This gives you permission, just like listening to Primus back in 1991 gave me permission to set out and do weird shit.
That’s what this is for.
“I miss live music so much,” @billmeis
Video by Steve Johnson from Pexels
This is as true today as it was back in 2007:
Email is such a funny thing. People hand you these single little messages that are no heavier than a river pebble. But it doesn’t take long until you have acquired a pile of pebbles that’s taller than you and heavier than you could ever hope to move, even if you wanted to do it over a few dozen trips. But for the person who took the time to hand you their pebble, it seems outrageous that you can’t handle that one tiny thing. “What ‘pile’? It’s just a fucking pebble!”
Merlin Mann
These days it’s not just email, or one inbox. We have DMs sitting in several social media apps, we have projects to follow up on, spread across multiple project management apps. Then we have text messages, voice mails, and oh yeah… email.
Lately I’ve been irritated by everything, mostly because everything is a pebble, and we’re all carrying around buckets of pebbles.
We already had to carry pebbles for our taxes and bills and all those emails, but we had release valves in the form of going to the gym, dinner with friends, going to a show.
For each of those activities we got to set down our bucket of rocks. The change in scenery, the change in context, it was a minor relief. We had a few of those per week, which was nice, because the bucket of rocks got heavy.
Now, on top of just all the normal pebbles and rocks, we see over half a million Americans dead. We see some states attacking transexual athletes. Outright racism. Dropping bombs. Rumors of another insurrection on the capitol. Texas lifting its mask mandate and opening everything up. No stimulus check. Massive unemployment.
Those are all pebbles, and rocks, and large boulders the size of large boulders, and they’re getting fucking heavy.
Today I chose day old coffee and putting my phone down to make this loop. This piece of video. This art. This isn’t to land a record deal, or get a billboard in Times Square. This is a signal to other weirdos out there (maybe you).
This is my resume in full display. I can make music. I can make videos. I can make social media assets. And I’m a bit weird.
These probably won’t get me making recruiter clips for HR departments, but hey, if you make music and need some video advice, hit me up. If you make videos and need some music, let’s talk.
Not as some formal big time collaboration thing… let’s talk. Shoot me an email, say hello.
Sometimes I think, wow… I could do so much more with these clips. Add some lyrics, another hook, make another part. But then I remember these are my daily journal entries. My morning meditation. Crack open my laptop, plug in my synth, and see what happens.
Between Super Bowl half-time performer and someone taking their first music lesson as a kid, there’s a lot of space in between, and the Super Bowl half-time show isn’t always the goal.
“There’s a massive burnout spike just around the corner as companies start to ask employees who’ve been barely holding it together through a year of a pandemic to start transitioning back to offices as if nothing has happened. Check in on your people and prepare accordingly,” @stewartsc
Video by Engin Akyurt from Pexels
What’s this NFT thing all about? Do you need to get on Tik Tok? Should you pay to promote your Tweets?
Write a good song. Take a good photograph. Paint a nice picture.
Make something good and nice that warms your heart, and keep doing that. Make it a habit, like the 2 hours a day you stare at Instagram.
It’s temping to pick up the phone to see what’s going on. Check for likes. See who maybe commented on one of your posts.
And yes, you need breaks. Of course.
But you need to write a good song. At this point in your artistic career, you have a better shot at writing that great play, that great song, that great image than you do “being really good at socials.”
Because someday socials will disappear. Make damn sure you’ve been using this time to make better art.
Video by Vanessa Loring from Pexels
Keep making, keep taking. Borrow, beg, and steal. Refine, reduce, I don’t know. Just make stuff. Throw up a warning flare to other weirdos that it’s okay to throw caution to the wind and let it fly. Break all the eggs, break all your legs, let it rip.
Moments of music making, and video making, keep my mind clear. Not full time, of course, but I look forward to the moments to let loose and make some weird shit.
“Fair to say that if someone sends me a link that starts with facebook dot com, I won’t be seeing it (and I’ll be surviving quite nicely),” @georgehahn
Video by Dima Krivoy from Pexels
I wrote ‘Everything is Cancelled‘ on March 14th, 2020. That’s when this long, tired, mentally exhausting and physically challenging crisis took over our lives. Over 500,000 Americans dead. We don’t go to movies anymore, or shows, or meet people for dinner. We didn’t really have Halloween or Christmas. Now it’s almost a year since this all started and I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel.
How many hugs did we lose this year? How many pleasant interactions with strangers did we miss out on? All the leisure activities that buffered our work life from our at-home life, those were wiped out. Hours, days, weeks of laughter, intrigue, new adventures. Stolen.
I remember last year doing a 5K run for five days. In April I tried running four miles every day (made it to 21 days or so). In November I started a run streak that lasted 70 days. Now I’ve posted nearly 60 music loops since the start of the new year.
In the end though, it’s just about surviving. Don’t catch COVID. That’s it. Don’t get sick, like so many others have.
It’s tiring. It’s defeating. Our government, our leaders, our communities have failed us in so many ways. It’s more than “wear a mask,” just as it’s more than “hey, remember to recycle.”
We’ve got money to bomb Syria, and riot gear when Black people protest.
But $15/hr wages? Oh, we can’t do that.
A “stimulus check?” What a joke.
Above all, that’s what has beaten me down the most. The friends, sure, going to shows.. yeah, but knowing so many “adults in charge,” leaders, all of ’em – it’s a let down.
We heard from lots of gov’t officials last fall! Lots of TV commercials, YouTube ads, direct mail. Now? Crickets.
We’re on our fucking own.
My cat is sitting in my lap, my grocery delivery was missing coffee creamer, and it’s dark an rainy out. Quiet Sundays are okay.
“This is going to sound hella snarky, but it’s true: Most successful people are too busy (the cause/effect of their success) to wander around an audio app teaching business success lessons,” @amahnke
“There’s no reason you need to react to everything. But it’s human nature. This is the social contract of the social media era. If you dare to shout your opinion or publish your work to the masses, the masses can choose to shout back,” from American Idle.
“who knew living an entire year during a global pandemic would completely destroy your mental health,” @kitvolta
For 58 days this has been an excercise in opening up a program to nothing but a blank template. This how I usually work best, because I know the magic isn’t in the building, or the writing, or the creating, it’s in the editing. Now, after making 100+ of these over the past few years (going back to 2008 or so) – these snippets, these loops – I know the real work comes after the idea is laid down. After something is written, painted, photographed – then the work begins.
Because at every step each note feels off, every track could have a little more reverb, it’s all rubbish compared to the 13 music streaming apps filled with music already created by people far more talented than me.
If that’s the case, why get up? Why get out of bed? Why go to work? It’s all a capitalistic march, make money, pay bills, and after so many decades die peacefully with friends at your side.
Fuck it. This in-between time is short, so this sort of nonsense will keep happening.
Video by Pressmaster from Pexels
Streaks, loops, new habits, whatever – shit is hard. Just got off the phone with my best friend. We literally talk a few hours a week on the phone. Have for years. We live close to one another, too.
I think we hung out four times in the past year. Socially distanced, of course. Safely. We hung out in our separate cars, in a parking lot with the windows rolled down. I visited his back yard. Shit like that.
Then I look at my recent posts here – maybe they’re not informative enough, they’re not kind to new readers, or packed with enough actionable measures for “creators” to take and apply to their own craft.
Well, fuck all that. This year I capped off a 70 day run streak. And I’ve posted a new loop – as a video – everyday on this site this year. I’m pushing my creative energies up a hill, and I’m exhausted.
It’s Friday night. Wrapped up some good work stuff, got in a five mile run, had a nice phone conversation, and now… I’m back on the computer.
Have a good weekend, friends.