Been a while between drinks

Well I released my EP. Nothing much changed, as I expected. I’ve had some time to sit and think on it and I’m still not really sure where I stand. As time has gone by I’ve been made more aware of certain amateur sounding aspects of my music. It’s stuff I can rectify going forward, but perhaps it contributed to the disregard for my music? I think that’s unlikely as other unprofessional sounding music tends to still be played on Perth radio.

For the most part, I think the problems with my music boil down the following factors:

It’s entirely too personal:

I modelled a lot of my songwriting on Sufjan Stevens. Most particularly the ambition he demonstrated on his landmark album Age of Adz. The way he viscerally portrayed his mental struggles was something I really admired, and I wanted to try and use musical atmospherics to communicate something similar - I also believed there was an audience for that sort of music, based on the fact that he’d had a degree of success with it. I realise now, of course, that Sufjan’s fanbase were invested in his life at the point which he released the album. They’d been won over by his earlier, lyrically introspective but musically pleasant music. Having gained their trust and admiration, he then experimented. My ambition was to dive in the deep end. I can’t be too surprised that nobody outside of my friends and family found it particularly engaging.

It’s lacking in the vocal melody department:

A lot of my songwriting influence on the EP was rhythmic. Nas, D’angelo, Wu-Tang. I wrote my lyrics from a hip hop background and kind of pasted them on top of the songs, without thinking about the catchiness of the melodies. So there’s no real hook for the listener. My choruses, to some extent, have a catchiness about them - but they are mostly monotonous and syncopated. Most listeners will give songs 20-30 seconds of judgement, so I need to learn from the ABBA school of songwriting: Get a catchy melody in as soon as possible.

The production is a bit all over the place:

All the tracks are a bit disparate. I Wanna Go is the most consistent I think, along with Interlude. Kallan works, but it is tonally different because it was mixed and toyed with by Sam. It’s also mixed with far more sheen than the other songs, which intentionally embrace the Wu-Tang grit. I Don’t Know is caught between my old and new production style, and as such stands out somewhat. The keyboard sounds are garageband-y, but the drums are a little too clean in the early parts of the song. Either/Or is just not quite soulful enough, and my vocal delivery is a little too intimate.

Those are the large problems I have with the EP. I think some of the tepid reception stemmed from how I treated it, particularly the haste I used, in the lead up to release. I may have been able to get more airplay on RTR if I’d wheedled my way into an interview. But I’m not sure I was mentally in the right space to do that sort of thing then. I’m not sure I will be in the future, but I may force myself just to leave no stone unturned.

I’m working on new music at the moment, the hope is to release it in Feb 2019. I want to get it out ASAP. If Spat was the full stop on four years of creative malaise, then this new stuff is a new sentence. I’m embracing a more carefree songwriting attitude, writing shorter and with less perfectionism. Most of the songs emerged rather quickly and I’m now just struggling with lyrics.

In general, I think I am in a better place emotionally. I’ve been quite depressed for so long, and I feel like I’ve turned a corner through healthy habits, therapy etc. But then I have days like today where I’m filled with so much self-loathing. It’s an unexplainable little pit in my soul where I resent the very sight of my own reflection. I hope it goes away one day, but I’m scared that this is it forever. That it’s just a thing I have to learn to acknowledge and work through. What an effort.

See you in another four months.

Disconsolate

Again I arrive at my lowest ebb, and can't help but find it amusing. Lately I have been inspired by the creative output of my friends and those I deeply admire. People who are either able to speak with great introspection about themselves, or to deftly create art which has little trouble connecting with other listeners. And I listen to the music I have written, and completed and am left wanting. It feels creatively uninspired, a monument to the creative folly of a person I am now 4 years removed from. It feels musically gratuitous and needlessly dense. It fails to be emotive in the sense that I hoped, rather appearing quite amateur-ish and far short of the atmospheric mark I'd aimed for. It also lacks any kind of quality that a general listener might enjoy. My judgement has been clouded by an illusion of artistic grandeur, a fallacious notion that the more complex and obscure the songs are the more creatively fulfilling the work will be. Instead I am left with a testament to my mediocrity, and an impending bill to have the final tracks mixed and prepared for release looming in the vicinity of $500. A rather paltry sum in the scheme of things, though certainly not one I can afford at this particular moment in time (being school holidays). 

So I spend $500, I release the songs and two or three people listen out of obligation. Repaying me for the time I had devoted to their art, or any acts of friendship which I may have furnished upon them in the past few years. The music itself is non-essential, their attention is tendered out of obligation rather than a result of merit. And so I fail. Devoting my ambitions to creative pursuits, eschewing dreams of love and travel in the vainglorious assumption that I might have something unique to say only to fail miserably. Falling embarrassingly short of the marks set by my peers, many of whom have cultivated rich and fulfilling social lives without sacrificing their creative ambition.  

Turns out this thing is google-able. Good thing nobody is searching my name. Between this blog and the 2006 blogspot variant I've been trying to figure out how to delete for years, google isn't doing me any favours. 

Mid year update

Howdy! Been a few months. Not much has been happening to speak of. I haven't been playing much this year, both originally and in a cover capacity. Not sure why but the milford street shakers don't seem to have much momentum at the moment, and we haven't rehearsed for a while. Has kind of sucked in regards to money, but one must keep on pushing through regardless. As an original musician, I have my second band gig of the year this Thursday at The Sewing Room. Rabbits Foot are coincidentally also playing, so that's nice. I am opening, I think due to an alphabetical lineup. But I'm not too stressed anyway, it'll just be nice to play. 

I'm at the point with my EP now where it's almost complete. I'm going to send the last song off for mixing this week, and I'm thinking about a September release date. Not sure whether I'll do an EP launch etc. Though I'll probably do at least some sort of house show or something. I just don't really have the energy for the Perth music scene anymore, not the least due to my belief that I'm not really creating music which can be successful in the scene. I also no longer believe that makes it inherently superior, like I might have when I was younger and more brash. Nowadays I'm quite content in the knowledge that the music I have made is an expression of my inner self, and I am comfortable in the knowledge that the final product is something I am proud of. I get more upset by the lack of opportunity to gig as an original musician, as I do think the way everyone in my band has interpreted the tunes is really cool. Outside of that though, I have no real desire to be "in the scene", as it were. There's too much focus on the aesthetic and not enough legitimacy in my opinion. That may be fine for them, but for me it runs the gamut of identity issues I have always struggled with. Overly conscious of falsehood, I find myself regressing in social situations, far too aware of the ways I am presenting a superficial representation of who I am. Of course, in my view one can never truly communicate anything about themselves, since none of us can quite comprehend our own character. 

The final EP tracklist is as follows:

1. I DON'T WANNA DIE (INTRO)
2. I WANNA GO
3. KALLAN
4. PRELUDE
5. INTERLUDE
6. EITHER/OR
7. I DONT KNOW

Howdy! This weekend I performed at my second Leeuwin Estate Concert in Margaret River. The Leeuwin Concert's are put on by a Margaret River winery, and features a different international touring act each year. Last year was James Taylor, which was an awesome experience given that I adore his music. This year Jackson Browne played, a slight come-down as far as the musical experience goes but still good! The highlight of the performance were his guitarists, both of whom were particularly lyrical in their solo choices. One in particular, Greg Leisz, played on John Mayer's Born and Raised - a favourite album of mine. So it was nice to hear him live.

We went on immediately after Jackson Browne's performance, and despite the weather being quite cold, I'd say we played for somewhere around 4000 people. Maybe more. The crowd looked huge at least, and there was a sizeable contingent at the front of the show who made it feel like a legitimate concert. While there's something soul crushing about the thought that I'll only ever get that response playing music I haven't written, it's still nice in the moment to have some aspect of your art validated. In general my guitar playing was pretty good on the night too! Still need to work on my chops though :) 

In a couple of weeks I'll be playing in Grace Sander's band for a show at Jack Rabbit Slims. It'll probably be the biggest original show I've ever been part of in Perth, and coincidentally I am not playing it under my own name, nor performing any of my own music. I'll be functioning as something of a music director I suppose, though in actuality it'll just be me playing as a guitarist and helping out with the coordination of the other musos. At least it is an opportunity to gig though, for original gigs for my own music elude me. 

Started reading Dostoevesky's House of the Dead. Let's see how that goes.

No alarm set for tomorrow either. 

The objective/subjective divide.

I got tagged in this post today by someone I don't actually know, and it was a very timely tag given the kind of thought I've been indulging in lately.

I remember the gig quite well, I was added to the bill at the last moment in order to fill-in for someone else who had unexpectedly cancelled. A particularly popular booking agency asked me to play, and I figured if I did it might curry favour with them and allow me to book some more shows, since up until this point they had yet to really allow me to lock in (spoiler: they never did). The show was quite minimally attended, I believe when I began there was nobody else in the venue but me and the bartender. Slowly two or three more people trickled in - including this guy apparently. I remember walking away from the show at the end of the night, having received no pay (it was an original gig and I figured it wasn't worth taking money from the headliner), and thinking "What is honestly the point in this?" I have never had the kind of external validation that I imagine even mildly successful artists get - I am largely an esoteric songwriter who finds appreciation in the words of my friends and family. And intellectually I am ok with that. But every now and then, as on this night, I can get down. Whether that be as a result of a perceived poor performance, or because of a lack of vocal appreciation - or both, as on this night.

So to see this rapturous comment, perhaps a year later is particularly mind blowing to me. I could have gone my entire life thinking this performance was a waste of my time, it likely would have drifted from my memory and perhaps I'd have eventually struggled to recall performing at the venue. But this guy, randomly, decided to share that he'd been impressed - and that forced me to confront (once again) that my reality is entirely subjective. 

I continue to try and perceive myself and my pursuits in an objective light, trying to prove that the things that I accomplish are either good or bad, allowing no in between. But comments like this demonstrate the flaws in my perception. Whether or not my performance on the night failed to live up to my own standards, for him there was a moment which became locked in his memory. Quality is such a difficult thing to categorise, as the protagonist of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance would attest. As an artist I tell myself that my tastes are grounded in an objective measurement of quality, I hold the music of others and myself to a certain standard and the failure to achieve that elicits my derision (a significantly more damaging thing when applied to my own self worth). 

But the fact I despondently walked away from a performance which provoked such pleasure in another human being grants me room to breath. What is self-criticism but the subjective perception of my most savage enemy - I am incapable of viewing myself but through the lens of my failure, since I so often face the consequences of my human frailty and allow it to build up as mounting evidence for the prosecution in a case against my worth as a person. Recognising the subjectivity of my own pursuits means that I might think, upon hearing a vocal flub or a guitar solo flub, "For someone else, that may be but a moment of levity in a performance otherwise marked by perfection", and my confidence remains undiminished. The effect of this is significant for someone as internally focused as I often am. The live stage remains an arena where ruminating on ones flaws does not make for a better performance - it leads to distraction, further mistakes, and (at least vocally) an inability to reach for the notes you'd otherwise hit. So I am learning to revel in the subjective on stage.

But what of the quality of my music? I have spent years aiming to create an objective masterpiece. Recently I have recognised my incapacity to reach the lofty heights I strove for in youthful exuberance, and for a time this left me down-hearted. But the posted screenshots also provides an example of a further comfort I have begun to allow myself in determining the quality of art. Ultimately, I have come to recognise that all great art will be forgotten. The heat death of the universe is certain - so regardless of how much civilisation may strive to enshrine artistic works in cultural memory, they too shall pass. Recognising the transience of culture, I recently asked myself "Why do I allow the vague concept of artistic legacy so much more merit than the rapturous appreciation of an individual in the moment?" Were I to be assured by someone that my thoughts would last a millennia, I believe I would gain less comfort than in the assurance by one of my peers that they appreciated something I had created in the moment. This is a freeing thought for me. 

Part 2

It's the 18th of January, and I'm sitting in my front lounge room listening to Justin Timberlake's new song like two weeks after it was released and wondering how we're already three weeks into 2018. 

I sent off a new song to get mixed two nights ago, called I Don't Know. It's about Ben (my youngest brother's) AVM rupture and subsequent coma in 2014... About how angry and confused and scared it made me that I couldn't (and still can't) see why that would happen to him. And ruing the fact that I still indulged in such excessive self pity when he provided me an example of someone whom life had dealt an objectively worse hand, yet refused to concede his ceaseless optimism. In terms of finishing the EP, I now just have to change some lines on the end a 12 min song I've written, then send that off to be mixed. I'm not going to bother with a launch I think, as I am too convinced of the futility of such an aim. 

I've been thinking a lot lately about the Australian music scene and my own songwriting. There's obviously a big push within the alternative scene to increase the number of women that are entering the music world, and this is being accomplished through gender-quotas etc. I'm totally onboard with it for the most part. I just think it's interesting to sit in this era, as someone who longs to express himself and to have that validated by other people, and to feel that there isn't really an audience that wants to hear anything I've got to say. Don't get me wrong, I recognise that white men have had the lions share of the public's attention for the last fifty years, and that the push to bring different voices to the fore is far from something I should be complaining about. But it's impossible for me to accept that I am not unique. I don't mean that because I legitimately believe it in my brain, but I am the hero of my own story, and as much as I try to achieve some semblance of an ego death, I don't think I can escape the sense of self-preservation which my heart maintains. I will always believe in my own importance.

So I'm lead to wonder if, in some way, this push will aid in the death of my musical aspirations? I don't have the exterior self-confidence that benefits so many other men in pursuing music as their aspiration. I waver between self-belief and self-loathing like a spinning top on the brink of toppling over. I don't drink and nor can I ever quite overcome the lingering vestiges of a social anxiety whose origins I can't trace, so I will never truly be capable of ingratiating myself into the social scene and procuring more gigs. And there's always a part of me that thinks "Perhaps I am just saying things that other white men have said before me". I'm so caught up in myself that I've no way of seeing things objectively. White men have written about death and existentialism for an eternity, and I think white men could write well about it again, but now seems to be an era to aid in the uplifting of women at the expense of the male voice. I wonder if my creative malaise will be both just and unjust. Just on a structural level, and unjust on a purely artistic level? After all, everyone deserves a voice - but perhaps my voice will be a necessary sacrifice in the quest to give a voice to others? Maybe I will learn to live comfortably in that reality with time. 

Secret Blog!

Hello friends,

Since I have a burning need to express myself, but also a deep anxiety about the fact that nobody would pay attention if I did, I have decided to pick the middle ground and express myself in a place where NOBODY can find it without REALLY caring. That way I CAN'T FAIL! I mean, all it would take is adding /blog to my website URL but to do that you'd actually want to hear my opinion and I doubt that is the case for anyone. 

That's enough self pity for now! I released a song like 3 weeks ago, I put a lot of myself into it and then immediately wanted to change everything about it when it was released. It has crumbled and fallen by the wayside due (I imagine) to the slightly longer than common form, and some shoddy vocal work. Also the start is kind of lame, I wish I'd added horns to it instead of the synth since that doesn't quite have the energy I wanted. I initially uploaded a poor master that I did myself, another act of self-sabotage. Realising not long after that it was quite inferior, I replaced it with a more professional master but I think most people who listened would have formed their opinion about it.

The best part of the song is the second half I think, which is counter-intuitive for a single. I like songs which take their time, like Lewis Taylor or Marvin Gaye on some of his more experimental albums (Troubleman and Here, My Dear). It's like an atmospheric thing, you disregard the standard verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus format and play a game of tension and release. I think I may have bitten off more than I could chew though, since it didn't even attract the attention of other people who like that sort of music. 

Played a show last week as a single launch. About 110 people came which is ok, I didn't have as much awareness spread about it as I'd have liked but I'm not gonna ruminate on it too much. The organisational side of things always kills my confidence. Between the lack of returned emails and the tepid release of the single itself there's potential for a hazardous decline into self-pity that I can ill-afford to indulge in right now. The actual set we played was great, probably as tight as we've ever been, so that's nice. 

Got a few more songs to release, just have to clean up the vocals on Interlude and I Don't Know, then get them mixed. Don't think I'll do an EP launch, I'll just dump them on the internet and let the music I've worked on for 6 odd years die a quick death. I think I am learning that I do not have the right kind of self-belief, nor the specific talent set for the music industry. My ambitions outweigh my abilities, is what I mean. I want to express a set of GRAND philosophical questions that have plagued me, but I don't actually have the capacity to do much more than think about them and rue my position. An internal focus demonstrates a dearth of ones capacity for meaningful communication. 

I WANNA GO streaming now! Help me crack the dollar mark in streaming royalties this year!

Love Kallan