I put on Gene Krupa’s Sing! Sing! Sing! this morning and sat down to tackle an entry about the recent UN Report questioning the legality of Israel’s invasion of Gaza when my gaze shifted to the bottom of my screen and I noticed that my inbox had 162 emails in it.
For a minute I was flooded with horror. Surely that nude picture of me and those four girls from Cirque du Soleil must have been leaked on the net. It was enough to make me pause and briefly consider what life would be like without a computer. But after working up the nerve to click the little mail icon I soon realized that it was just the usual – say hello to the bad guy.
There are a lot of don’ts in the music business. One of them is having the audacity to pronounce the belief that art is not a competition and that trophies needn’t be handed out to validate what any artist would intrinsically do even if they spent the majority of their time working at a gas station and the rest of it recording poor quality demos in some basement suite on an antiquated cassette four-track. Ya, some of us have the gall to make a living at it, but God forbid any of us dare openly express ourselves beyond the contents of a compact disc. We are, after all, lucky to be able to write, record, and perform music for a living – God knows the majority of us weren’t endowed with talent and just happened to grease our way through music’s formidable front door.
If you’re looking for people that want to be stars there are plenty out there begging to play the part. All you need do is turn on a television to realize that a lot of people will do whatever it takes to gain recognition, even if it means making a complete fool out of themselves. If that’s what’s required to placate the masses then perhaps I should start looking for another job. Ironically, if there’s one thing that a lot of people don’t like when it comes to musicians it’s defiance, which is hilarious being that rock and roll was supposedly founded on conveying that very principle through music. Sure, you can dress up and play the part in videos and on stage, but heaven help you if you actually mean it. Even more ironic is that while we canonize those from the past that routinely drew outside the lines we have little to no objection when it comes to eating our young. In short, we are skirting dangerously close to living in a ‘Disney world’ in which smiles and continually upbeat presentations of ourselves are considered the only acceptable norm.
Jeremy Taggart conveyed something to me this morning…
“There you go again Son. Now fucking finish it this time! You have their ear! They only listen for so long. Bunch of skimming pricks.”
…so I’m going to risk it and take his advice.
Many people have commented about the troubles faced by the music business over the last decade. The excuses include everything from labels being unwilling to embrace change to internet piracy. In the past I have broached those subjects, but the truth of the matter is that all of them are, in the end, just that – excuses.
If you want the uncensored truth look no further than the degradation of the respect afforded intrinsic talent on all levels, from those within the industry to the public itself. Simply put, I wasn’t put on this earth to be a mathematician. I do not possess the gifts required to be one, nor could I ever achieve what is required to be one of merit. Those are simply the cards I was dealt at birth. Instead, I came into this world with a chemical imbalance in my brain that has run rampant my entire life causing internal demons to routinely clash with my imagination producing, not unlike atoms smashing together, personal nuclear events that have resulted in everything that I have ever written, painted, drawn, or recorded. It is, in a sentence, a precise set of internal variables that produces the sort of creative expression that translates beyond the immediate to a larger consciousness. And while I have spent years trying to refine how best to translate those internal events, the truth is that I have no more control over their existence, nor the absolute need to translate them as if releasing a pressure valve, than that of the base instinct of a wild animal to preserve itself.
For every artist it’s different, but in the end the individually unique elements involved share the same course.
During his life, Lou Reed has produced both highly influential and controversial music, spending much of his career labeled a volatile personality by the media. While he has, at times, achieved commercial success, he has rarely capitalized on it, tending to walk in completely quizzical directions after the fact that have utterly confused fans and critics alike (take ‘Metal Machine Music’ for example). But despite these things, at the age of 67, Lou Reed continues to produce art. The same can be said of a plethora of others that are not considered ‘super stars’ by most, such as Tom Waits and even the venerable Chuck Berry who continues to perform at the age of 82. Unlike Berry’s Johnny B. Goode, which was the only rock song to be included on the Voyager Golden Record, you won’t find anything on the Twilight soundtrack being sent into space any time soon as a representation of one of the cultural elements of the human race.
There is no questioning the fact that my artistic impact will never even come close to being as relevant as that of Reed, Waits, or Berry. But that doesn’t alter the fact that none of us were born to be renowned mathematicians. We were born artists, and that is not something that can be faked indefinitely.
What has truly befallen music is the rise of a serious lack of respect for the inherent talent of artists, something that has been gradually replaced with an altogether empty admiration for those that simply achieve fame and wealth no matter their actual abilities. The radio single has been boxed in and serious grass roots promotion of local talent has been all but abandoned by stations now almost wholly owned by single corporate entities. The relevance of music videos has dwindled to such an extent that most artists don’t bother producing them anymore as stations have turned to primarily airing reality television programs interrupted here and there by annoying tween-like on-air personalities that, for all intents and purposes, are little more than daycare supervisors with trendy haircuts – and to think The New Music actually once aired on Mush Music.
But who am I to comment – Much Music is a business and those that own it have every right to do as they please. That said, what Denise Donlan did for Canadian music while she was there may never again be matched.
I’ve been fortunate, there’s no denying that. Over the fifteen years that I have been making records not one of them hasn’t at least been certified Gold. True, I only have cult followings in other countries, and that some routinely view my opinions as little more than “sour grapes”. The truth, of course, is that throughout my career I have been afforded many chances to play ball and refused to do so. I stand by those decisions, so comments that “sour grapes” are involved simply reflects the perception of those that believe that all out success is a prerequisite of being an artist.
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
To close, I defer to the unbridled wisdom of Jer Taggart…
“True art and creativity = Water
Ratings and Pizazz = Oil
Watered-down Water + Oil = The Junos”
