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For the record, I seem to be going through a strange classic rock addiction at the moment. Yes, I'm listening to KISS. Never thought this moment would come, but then again a lot of moments have come that I never thought would... It's mostly a curiousity thing -- these hugely successful bands have to have *something* to them. As for KISS, I'm listening to the live recording "Alive!", and I must say they are tight, in that fucking amazing way. Ah, the good 'ole days when music was about rocking and rolling and partying ev-er-y day... Well, to save face, I will say I picked up The Stooges as well. "Raw Power" was lovely dirty gritty fun, I must say.
The new year finds me with a few new ideas banging around in my head. I found myself pretty down at the end of last year... After three years without releasing any new music, it's easy to set yourself up for disappointment. I built it up in my head -- this album is fucking amazing, we're going to pack our CD release party and sell out of our CDs immediately. And as it turns out, neither happened, we pretty much just ended up just as we always have -- a decent number of people showed up to see us play, and we've sold about half of our first pressing of CDs, but it was so much less than I expected.
Which begs the question: what the hell did I expect? I mean, seriously, I've been doing this long enough, I should know better by now.
Which *really* got me thinking. What am I trying to do here with Endless Blue? What's the end goal? I've found myself over the years detatching myself farther and farther from who I really am as my musician's "persona". After a while, I stopped blogging and writing about my life, as it seemed much too mundane, much too far from that persona I wanted to project. As if people would not listen to my music if they knew I shopped at Pick'n'Save and did my laundry and shovelled snow... It reminds me of a saying of Laura's about really talented but tragically geeky actors: they're so damn good, why not just "act" cool all the time? That's what I was going for.
What really threw it into contrast for me was reading the infamous "Ignore People" book on gapingvoid.com. I remembered all those years sitting in my little trailer in Socorro, New Mexico, puttering away with computers and synths and sequencers for hours and hours on music that would never see the light of day. I was happy and satisfied then, and I was truly grateful that first time I posted some music and someone dropped me that email that said "Hey, I dig your stuff".
So to it all I say "bullocks". I'm not so far gone yet. I can still make music for the sheer fun and joy of it. And if someone buys a CD or comes to a show, that's great. But if not, that's OK too. I had a blast making and recording the music.
Let's hear it for 2009!
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