Am I Doing This Right?

I guess it's just the nature of any artist to always be second guessing yourself, always walking a fine line between creating art or just product, trying to be different enough to get noticed but not so different that no one can get into what you are doing, not knowing if you're selling yourself too hard or not hard enough.

Of course with that comes the inevitable balance between honesty and letting your fans share with you your trials and triumphs, and being solidly professional and only sharing the triumphs. If you're only in it for the triumphs then I'd recommend stopping here and seeking out cat videos instead.

I've always said that music is something you do not because you want to do it, but because you are compelled to do so. I guess everyone has to have their one vain and completely futile thing that they do to try to obtain some degree of immortality. We all want to create something that will outlast us. That's why it's so gut-wrenching that we live in an era when art, music, entertainment in general has become so cheap and readily available that it's only the images and words that are constantly repeated that stick with us. Media is in fact the opiate of the masses and it can be had absolutely free and gift wrapped in a slick package of sex. I'm sure there's a fight club quote I can throw in here about how we grew up being told we were gonna be rock stars and movie gods and now we've realized that's never gonna happen and we're pissed off.

So why even bother then? I guess I'm not set on becoming a rock god, that boat sailed ages ago. Though it would be nice to be able to be in a situation where I can be one of those pretentious douchebaggy musicians who is constantly posting crap about how you should never take a "pay for play," or a non-paying gig, or fall into the trap of playing battle of the bands shows. Or worse than that are the posts about how people are willing to pay $5 for coffee but won't pay $1 for a song. Get over yourselves guys, it's 2015, the music isn't even the product anymore. A song is just a 4 minute jingle for a T-shirt. Not to mention that if you still haven't made more money than you've invested in gear and marketing, you're still paying to play. And, if you've ever had the misfortune of being the less popular band playing the venue across the street from where the more popular band is playing... well that's losing the battle of the bands right there.

So we keep walking that fine line, trying to find a balance. Maybe that's why I'm not doing this right and why our progress has seemed like dragging ass through quick setting concrete. I was born in the wrong place, at the wrong time, under the wrong star sign. The band Snog said it best when they said, "I'm a late 20th century, post-modern tragedy." Too old to be cool, too young to be taken seriously by the older generations. Born in those years of the early 80's where people can't decide if I'm part of generation X or a millennial. I guess the music I write is a reflection of this giant identity crisis. Guitar heavy rock having taken a brutal beating but not willing to lay down and die yet while EDM elements are being breech-birthed into the mix. It's those of us who were old enough to remember the 90's when the american dream seemed largely still alive and then saw the economy go to shit and the general populous turning from skeptical moderates to heavily divided flocks of sheep blindly consuming the media that's been custom catered to fall in line with the socio-political sports team they've decided to follow. The songs I write aren't inoffensive canned songs about unrequited love, but show too much skepticism towards both sides of the political aisle to be accepted by the  right wing flag wavers or the Rage Against the Machine left wing. You can't really market a product that can't decide what the hell it is really trying to be.

Now comes the part where I feel I should throw in a fart joke to keep from being too pretentious.

Yeah... back in my day we only had like 100 pokemon.

In the end, I grew up Mormon. Gave up Mormonism in my mid-20's so by that point I was already well past the age where they say addiction is likely when experimenting with alcohol or drugs. So why do I do what I do? Because I've realized that the music is my addiction. I can't give it up. If I go bankrupt (again) it will be because of the music. If my marriage fails it will likely be because of the music. If I die, it will likely be from melting my brain trying to perfect a composition that 12 people total will listen to on soundcloud.

Maybe there will come a day when more skeptical identity-crisis cases latch on to what we are trying to do and maybe the music will eventually at least pay for itself. I'm sure even at that point I'm still gonna be asking constantly, am I doing this right?