Endtroducing..... the wave.
It is 1:40am and I am in a hotel room in Philadelphia after seeing one of the best shows I have ever witnessed in what will be 30 years (in a few short months). More on that in a minute.
If you know me, then you know that I have a tattoo of a wave on my arm. It's like a combination of a celestial body combined with an ocean wave - and from a distance it looks like a wave, but up close it looks like an eye. I found a black and white version of it in this book on consciousness a long time ago - and I got it tattooed on me because I like it to be a reminder to myself that we are all in this ocean of consciousness together. Like it or not. Friends come and go. Sometimes you thought someone was a friend, and they weren't. Sometimes you thought you could trust someone and you could not... sometimes you think you could never let yourself down again like you have in the past, like you are older, more knowledgeable, experienced and somehow prone to only success, entirely growing out of the possibility of and achieving a level in which you can allude failure, emotional adversity or mental instability, ad infinitum. But waves rise and fall - and so does life. So does music. If music is not dynamic, then it sucks. If conversations are always agreements, then they accomplish nothing. If your relationships do not cause you to think about yourself and how you could better yourself, then you need to dig deep and figure out what it is that you want. Ishmael said, "I don't think you can want something until you know it exists." I thought that line was bullshit when I first read it. I still sometimes want to look at it and scoff, like Daniel Quinn was just being super preaching/far out and being like, "whoa, man... that's...... deep."
But it is the truth. If you don't know something exists, then you cannot want it. You might think you want something, because you know it exists... and it seems appealing. But more often than not I have found that what I want, based on what I know exists - a lot of it really goes south quick. I am an idea person. I always have tons of ideas. Constantly. When I was younger I feel like I had even more, but now that I am so on track with my music, producing, engineering, mixing - on top of working my days away and trying to maintain somewhat of a semblance of a social life, if such a thing really even exists for people like me. I like to think I will find an equilibrium in the coming years. It is a trial and error type deal, and trying to not be so hard on myself... because I really am. I feel like if my records do not sound like they could be played on the radio, then I am a failure and need to work harder. But the bottom line is that I simply need to work more intelligently. Not harder. Working harder does not even mean anything... it just means less time doing things you enjoy, being outside, walking around, talking to people, interacting with the world and connecting with people and nature... all the things that are vital to happiness and personal growth, yet are often blocked out because, well, if you live my life, then you would get home at 5:45 monday to friday, leaving hardly any time to make dinner, let alone clean up the mess I made during dinner, before I hit the studio by 7, so I can bang out 3.5 hours of work before I have to go to sleep and wake up the next day at 6:30 to do it all again.
But when am I most productive? When things are down to the wire. That's when. Not when I am meandering, taking my time on mixes. Sure, I get to have them sink into my consciousness and feel them on an emotional level and then connect it sonically though editing/producing/mixing to make the emotional connection the most profound that it can be. When a band comes in, I produce/engineer their sessions and mix each track in 10 hours... that's when things - in my experience - sound the best. The tracks that I slaved over - turns out - I am always going to hear something that I am not crazy about.... and that's because when you are so anal retentive and detail oriented - basically, chasing perfection - which is what it is that you are really chasing - if you work like I have often worked in the past, up until a few months ago - is driving yourself insane and being beyond unhappy, but purely miserable. There is something wrong when you have everything going for you and are entirely unhappy because of your own doing. When you can't even blame it on depression... what can you blame it on? You have to take a few steps back. Hike out into the middle of the woods. Sit next to a pond with trees all around... and then it is all lifted. All the bullshit. All the cynicism, bitterness and self entitlement that goes along with being a privileged white man in very tail end of my 20s.
Yesterday was a low point. A really low point. I cannot recall feeling so frustrated with life and generally speaking depressed and alone. But then I met a friend out for lunch - well, not just a friend, but the girl I dated for three and a half years up until recently - and it was not all great (because there is a lot to process from three and a half years of a lot of actions on my behalf), but it left me feeling really happy. I think it was just seeing her again and knowing like, you know, when you wake up from a nightmare, you think, "oh man, so glad that was just a nightmare. Totally horrifically terrifying" ... I think seeing and talking with her was like, "oh, this is how we dated for so long. Because we really do love each other and have a special connection." There is, however, much more to a lasting relationship than just having that, and that is where I shall end talking about that... but about an hour before we met up (I was still raging in my head as I have been for the past few weeks), I read an NPR article about DJ Shadow. His tour with Cut Chemist, spinning Afrika Bambaataa records kicked off two nights ago (three counting tonight, I guess). Last night was the second NYC gig and tonight they played Philadelphia. Since Philly is only 3.5 hours from where I live, It made perfect sense to hop on the opportunity the universe presented to me to not just see some great music - but to see a once in a lifetime show. Two of the best DJs around spinning all the classic records that were and are the foundation of hip hop, and thus, a large part of all of the music that I listen to... aside from rock, funk, ambient and acoustic... hip hops influence in the myriad of generas in which I play, produce and listen to on a regular basis is indubitable, vast and rather incomprehensible. Tonight helped me realize just how vital hip hop is to me as a human being, musician and philosophical thinker. <---- Whoa, right?! Yeah. Shit is no joke. Tonight was crazy. It was like a time warp, where everyone inside witnessed something that no one will ever see again.
So today I forced my exceptionally hungover self (last night was very reminscent of my college days at strose. lots of beer. lots of pot. Probably talked about a bunch of crazy shit to a bunch of different people. I know one girl in particular was NOT stoked to be talking to me. But, I didn't want to be talking to her, either, she just happened to be next to me at the bar. Fuck you too, bitch.) to eat breakfast, pick up my apartment a bit and then head to the studio to hop on the internet and figure out a gameplan for heading to Philly. Ended up hanging out for a while, you know, doing the internet thing, answering emails/facebook messages. Gotta keep the studio running, ya dig? The hustle cannot stop. But then I was like, "man, I didn't even finish my coffee." So I grabbed my shit, tossed the cup in the microwave at the corset building that doesn't heat anything even if you leave half a cup of coffee in for a minute. Fuck that microwave. But whatever. Coffee heated to lukewarm, my backpack/laptop (for writing this, later on, which is now, ugh, now.), my acoustic a water bottle and I rummaged around my disgustingly cluttered backseat for some CDs to rock on the way. One of the CDs I grabbed was Soulive's "No Place Like Soul" it's a good one. I liked when Soulive tried to do the pop thing. I think they could have made a better second album had they worked with a better producer, but I am glad they are back as a three piece. Love those guys. So, one of the tracks on the album is this instrumental called "Bubble."
At so many points tonight I thought, "man, this beat is totally *this song* or *this band* or *this album*" ... one of those tracks made Bubble sound like it was pretty much taken right from the collection of Afrika Bambaataa. My mind has been pretty much blown repeatedly tonight, and I am pretty certain that I am going to have to fly somewhere to another city to catch another one of these shows. Legendary does not quite hit the nail on the head. It was beyond legendary. If there is such a thing.
The music tonight was SO. FUCKING. GOOD. If I had to list my top shows... it would probably involve Soulive at Revolution Hall on November 30th, 2005. Galactic at The Westcott on August 9th, 2013. Fiona Apple at the State Theatre on the blazing hot night of June 19th, 2012. DJ Shadow at Club Soda on November 13th, 2010.
But tonight... oh, man. Tonight. What happened tonight? Tonight was an experience I will never forget. Shadow and Cut Chemist worked together to create a 90+ minute set of the heaviest beats, funkiest horn lines, syncopated - and at times synchronized - scratching. From the heaviest, funkiest beats with shadow spinning trippy vocal samples with delay and reverb on top, or shadow spinning a super heavy, funky beat, with cut chemist scratching horn hits, more vocal samples... they both often had several of the same record spinning, switching back and forth. It was just an incredible experience. I did not know what to expect... I knew it would be good. There was no way I could have known that it would (or could) be THIS good. Tonight, a new level of music was reached. DJing and all of music is changed in my mind. After seeing those two dudes on stage, having what was visibly evident the times of their lives, cutting up sick ass classic vinyls... I do not think I could look at music or anything the same ever again. It was like a live-action, interactive history lesson in where so much of my music comes from... and, in a way, giving me a clue into what I should do with my own music, with my various bands, and how to approach producing and engineering.
You know, so often musicians like to think that the most complex stuff is what is the most impressive. All guitarists want to be able to shred, so they can be like, "Oh, hey, check this out... It's pretty fast, huh? Pretty cool, right?" When, in reality, that shit is cool for about ten minutes. If that is all you can do, however, and you cannot or do not play melodically, rhythmically, with syncopation or interact with fellow bandmates... then you are basically just a useless musician. You are just indulging your own desires without regard for the entire point of music - to get people together and connect with them, and with yourself. Typical modern rock will always exist, as will typical sugar-coated pop (different side of the same coin if you ask me)... same thing goes for "super original music".... but a lot of that "super original music" is rather, I guess I would have to say, self congratulatory... making music for the sake of being able to play it, not necessary because it grooves and you can bob your head to it or sing along to the lead melody. What I got out of tonight is the fact that originality does not necessarily have to be entirely original. If you are doing something that someone would call "played out" or "over," and you are doing it with passion, intensity, creativity and an open mind to take your music to new places in which the progenitors of said music ever thought of taking it... then is that not originality? I think it is. Which means that the flood gates are open. We should not feel like we have to play covers at bars. We should not feel like we have to shred our faces off to impress as many people as possible. We, as musicians, should just be trying to make the most grooving, vibed out, socially, personally, emotionally and mentally uplifting music that we possible can. There is nothing else to it. That should be the goal... and if YOUR goal is to get famous playing four chord songs in a three piece band, or to write songs with 100 chord changes and 20 band members... then I am not sure that I agree with your reasoning about why you play music. Music should be made for self expression, that should be the number one... but you are expressing yourself in an attempt to connect with other people, who can be moved by your music as you are moved. Unfortunately, I do not see a whole lot of that happening these days. It's transient. There is a LOT of good music played by a LOT of talented musicians... but... but but but... after tonight I know that - personally speaking - I am going to try and make sure that everything I make is not complex for the sake of being complex. If I want something to be complex, then I need to make sure it has a balancing aspect to it so that it is not, for lack of a better term, masturbatory. There is so much music left to be made by humans, especially Americans... especially New Yorkers. After the show tonight, right now, I am so stoked to get to work on all this new music. Tons of new studio projects coming up. Tons of new music of my own. It's an exciting time, and I am ready to move onto this next phase of my life. The big 3-0. I am ready. Let's end this on a good note, 20s. We were good enough to each other. Let's not let things get too too crazy.
It is now 3:00. That was a lot to get out tonight... and I am not really tired enough to go to sleep, but I should probably put my computer down and see if the utterly-dead feeling that my legs feel will float up to my head so that I can shut my eyes and sleep for a few hours before driving home tomorrow.
