Bills, bills, bills, and still not a release!

Something I have learned the very hard way is when you take things up a level thing incrementally get harder and cost more.

Its like walking along the sea front on a clam day. The wind is nice, it’s a bit cold but you enjoy it and the sea is just sliding in and out slowly, that lovely shushing sound of the pebbles rolling up and then back as the sea breaths in and out.

That is when things are easy. In my world of music it used to fell like that. I could go into the studio and I was part of the furniture I just plugged in and all the equipment just bent to my breathing it was not hard work and it was enjoyable and easy to do, I was the music my passion flowed with no complex stuff  just the calm sea and a nice walk was how easy making music was to me back then and i loved the challenges and would live in my little studio room until i had expressed the vibe i was trying to create but i loved doing it.

Go on READER close eyes and your mouth and take a slow deep breath`!

In through your nose and then slowly open you mouth and let it out.

Go on do it…

Please…

That was how easy making music was for me back in the days when raving was massive and dance music was still called electronic .

BUT NOW

Things have changed so much. I can’t say I find it hard to make music but now the making of music is almost incidental to all the other stuff you need to also do.

It feels like I’m trying to take that same breath in a room which is filling with smoke and I am choking as I try to breath out.

Its not that I have lost the ability to make music its just now the fight to complete the task ( and breath out) is so much harder because its no longer just the music I have to complete.

Its all the digital stuff I’m having to do before I can release anything and exhale and thats because the industry has changed so much from just making a record and putting it into a shops

The real cost to complete any single task is no longer about just making the record. Its much more intricate now if you want to get the attention of the public.

I have to be so precise about quality using so many different expensive applications and paying for other peoples specific knowledge in this digital world just to ensure that I am making something that’s of more value as everyone wants more than just the music if they are going to buy it.

Music can be ripped for free so now I need to offer so much more in order for people to want to pay and get the true value in what I am doing.

I know I could continue to just knock out tunes as MP3’s but in todays world they are worthless and disposable fodder for a world where music is now just a small file you can delete and replace for another and as for the pressing of vinyl (the old way) with the few record shops left, it is just as pointless a way to continue.

I know I have had to move forward but the bills the bills the bill

I made a track once in less than 5 mins while my girlfriend was drying her hair and she was shouting at me to be ready but I had this idea and it involved only 4 parts I had in my head and i had to do it but time was against me (women don’t take the word ‘ just 1 min’ very well) but i had this tune in my head and i had to express it before it was lost.  it used just

1 break

1 stab sound

1 vocal sample

1 bassline

You would think that it would be a bish bosh, waste of time but I am always firing with ideas. The track was called ‘Moon stomping’ it took 5 minutes to make and I had it in the shops on Vinyl in less than two weeks and it sold in the first month 20,000 copies on 12”.

It’s a simple tune but addictive and back then it was a perfect rave record and no- one else was on my tip or style. Playing a tune like that at a rave of 20-30,000 people, the quality was in the volume, it was about having the right sounds and being fresh.

I did not have to be so precious with my production or the cover on the artwork. Most of my artwork back then was hand drawn or  was cut letters stuck onto a label then photocopied.

5 mins while my girlfriend was drying her hair!  lol

Sounds stupid but music is a funny thing and being creative can sometimes be even funnier. You just know what works and if it’s good then its good as its all about the vibe.

It was easy to take risks with music I never put my name on hardly anything knocking tunes out that I knew were good but also protecting myself from the negative kick back if people did not understand my style

So here I am now 21st century music maker

I can still make music, I love it and my skills have improved over the years as my history in the charts will confirm but now I am stuck in so much new technology which I have to wade through in order to release anything worth the attention of the digital world public.

Artwork has to be polished and to spec, design, story, game, digital platform specifications are mind boggling

It’s not really music any of this stuff but it all has to be done and because of this I have had to sit on 6 really cool albums (I think) so that they stand a chance of being noticed in the crowded space of the throw away digital music world.

6 years! and during this time I have been trying to live and pay bills while doing this but also paying Hugh amounts of technical bills also.

The first two years of my digital work were written off totally as I started the massive project doing it all as Flash comics and videos

Apple kicked Flash out and I had to start all over again

People close to me (who should support me) are totally tired of me and my attempts to finish this project it’s now a boring story of “it will be finished soon” which i seem to say a lot and being told in response “get a real job” which is now the general perception of those around me

I think that’s sad as I know what I’m doing g is really cool but there is always a point when you can say “it will be out soon” one too many times and people start to think you’re a “west of space, living in dream land” and still the bills the bills the bills

All need to be paid.

I have sold almost all my studio gear and still the bills are coming but getting a full or part time job would just set my work back even more. The project is just so big and it all has to complete around the same time

I never realised how big and technical it was and how expensive it would all be but still I think it’s the dogs nuts and really cool but if no one tweets it or Facebook’s  it then I’m still stuffed.

Is this what being an Artist is about now days?, I suppose it is

That calm walk along the sea front is more like the hurricane season and I’m still there now, pushing against the gale to get to the other side.

Then there’s the final process “soon” I will be releasing it and it might still get stuck under a pile of music being release and never get seen

That will be the worst thing as then I would have been proved to have been a “waste of space”

I have been in this situation a few time before in my life, on the edge of loosing everything but somehow my belief in my work and what I do gets me through and I manage to get back up and the bills can all be paid again but this time there is so much more doubt with the world as it is (in recession) and pirating as it is (stealing seems acceptable) and how disposable music has become.

Will anyone care?

and if they do will they actually care enough to buy it?

or only care enough to only steal it?

Most people don’t get the opportunity to put their life into a project like I have always done.

I think people generally they take life day to day and they make ends meet but I’m not like most people I have always believed if I work hard with the passion I have for what I do and believe in what I’m working for I can succeed!

I can make people happy with the music i make and also make a financial return from my passion in music allowing me to continue being creative and paying my bills after all my efforts and risk.

So if you’re wondering about this blog

This was me thinking out loud, as I know “it will all be out soon” lol  at least when it is i can exhale again..