Keep Doing What You're Doing...

“Keep doing what you’re doing.”

Yeah… I hear that again and again. Terrible advice but I follow it anyway… as quixotic as it is. For what it’s worth, after two years on the road I have become one hell of a musician… in a time when no one buys music anymore… in a time when few people go to clubs to hear music… whether they can’t afford it because of the economy… or whether it is because they don’t want to risk the police gauntlet at a time when being near someone who drinks is enough to get you a DUI… or whether they would rather watch something on their Netflix or one of their ten fucking billion channels… or whether they would rather hang out “liking” shit on facebook…

Keep doing what you’re doing.

At the time when I started to seriously pursue music… the early nineties… it seemed like one of the few ways to express yourself that had some potential for success. Being someone whose artistic needs cannot be suppressed or ignored without serious fucking mental and emotional consequences, I had to find some way to get this shit out. I tried painting, drama and photography but all that seemed so… well… antique.

But music seemed fresh and very much alive in the early nineties. People look back on Nirvana now and think… well… “Kobain was such a genius” Bullshit. Nirvana was a pretty average garage band with unapproachable lyrics. They would have been completely ignored if not for their very fortunate timing. Independent labels were flourishing. A large college aged population were craving something more interesting than the bullshit that had dominated the 80’s rock scene. I mean… seriously… fuck Motley Crue. Yeah… go ahead and tell me how great you think they were. I assure you that they sucked in every way. They had a decent drummer. Like I give a fuck.

“Girls girls girls”

I have spelled out better lyrics with my vomit after consuming a fifth of Jack.

So suddenly there was “alternative” rock. The big labels couldn’t completely dominate the market anymore. There was room and an audience for someone with some fucking vision. “Smells like Teen Spirit” rocked the world. There was room in this business for someone like me.

That was a long time ago. My ambition back then was to make great albums and sell enough of them to get by. Then came Napster, torrents and cheap recording equipment. On the one hand every fucking wannabe could make an album and on the other no one was buying records at all. Sure there is still great music out there and perhaps even more of it than ever but no one buys it anymore. But by this time, I had sold my soul. I had invested so much into learning to play instruments, sing, and entertain that there really is no turning back. The economy has tanked. Permanently (I hate to break it to you). Obama can’t put Uncle Humpty Dumpty Sam back together. The idiots on the other side can only make things much much worse. There really isn’t much point in sending out resumes back to the “real” world. The corporate world HR person will Google my ass and instead of seeing someone with serious skills… someone who can build a website… write clever songs and stories… design packages… play instruments… engineer and produce quality music… they will see a degenerate… a rebel… loose canon… a barefoot weirdo…

Forget it.

Keep doing what you’re doing.

Like I have a choice here.

The sad thing is this time… as horrible as it is… is my time. I know this not by how awesome I think I am but by my CD sales per audience member… by how much money gets thrown at me… how many people come up to tell me how awesome I am… by how many people tell me…

Keep doing what you’re doing…

But it’s rough… hitting half empty clubs on a weekend night. Some nights are better but I still haven’t figured out how to get that “give-a-shit” quotient up. I beg and beg my few fans to help me out. Share videos and shit… but it’s hard. We are so distracted. So I hit the road. I barely have change for gas to the next town. I am totally dependent on an old Toyota truck. It is my home now. The bad news is that it is old. The good news is that it is a Toyota. Thank god. I would be done by now if I drove a Ford.

I do love what I do. It took me awhile to accept the whole one man band thing but now I am enjoying it. I like always being able to have my lyrics heard over the racket. I love that I am able to get people to dance. It’s a good job for me. I am kept insane by going insane in a controlled environment (the stage). The hours are pretty good. I get to work barefoot. It suits my stubborn duct taped together personality.

But it’s a bad time. Clubs are struggling. Musicians are struggling. I am not sure what the solution is. Some say selling out. Indeed, one commercial would be a year’s income for me. Others think maybe crowd-funding is the future. You want me to “keep doing what I am doing”? Help me out.

Today, I am stuck in a Catch-22. Most of me really wants to live inside and stop this fucking merry-go-round… at least for a month or two… but I would need some income to do that. A job. That’s a dodgy thing. Even in good times, jobs have been hard to come by for me. The rub is that if I end my tour and try to settle and can’t find work, I am really screwed. Most clubs are booked three to six months in advance. That means I would be stuck without income for three months. Plenty of time to turn my truck into a shopping cart. Plenty of time to get kicked into the gutter without any way out.

Keep doing what you’re doing.

I hope the truck has a few more miles in her but I know she won’t run like this forever.

And neither will I.