17. Seattle

Well, this is the end.  I am just a few days away from recording my next album and this is the end of my discography.  I have posted every single song I've ever recorded.  It seems that I've sparked the same interest as I have through various other forms of promotion.  That is to say, nothing.  Well, I guess that's showbiz.  I'm pretty tremendously proud of what I've done, as it differs greatly from whatever else is offered.  But I have to assume that it isn't what people are looking for at this time.  Maybe it's something else.  I don't know.  Timing is always crucial in these matters.  I have five - and soon to be six - examples of bad timing.  It is difficult to put out works that have no audience.  I don't know how much longer I can do it.  But here's a personal account: when I finished Mackris v. O'Reilly, I pretty much vowed to not write another note again.  It was completely not worth it, due to all the crap I had to endure to get it performed.  I approached its production with pure heart and clear intent, and so much really bad stuff happened in between.  So I was, like, OK, that's it.  No more music.  I've learned my lesson.  It didn't last long.  I launched another massive project that attracted zero attention, then another, then I started writing pop music.  I'm five albums into this experiment and, so far, nothing.  Of course, I've appealed to all the outlets who claim that local music is their primary concern.  I don't want to mention names, but there's a certain station that's right across the street from where I photograph squirrels that does nothing but throw my albums away.  Seriously, I get far more airplay in Bangor, Maine.  I suppose this is the narrative to most musical careers.  You try; you fail.  You try again; you fail again.  And then you give up, because the world is sending you a message.  Right now, I'm trying to figure out what to do.  I can't stop writing music.  That's not an option.  I don't begrudge anyone any success that they've had.  Even if that someone is Train or Coldplay.  Or Capital Cities or Maroon 5.  Or LCD Sound System or Wiz Khalifa.  But the truth about success in pop music is that there's always room for what you're doing - unless, of course, what you're doing is completely derivative garbage, but wait - every band I've mentioned falls into that category.  Oh well, sorry.  I guess it's just like the lottery.  Stupid people win; smart people win, and they're all equally miserable.  While the people who never win are also miserable, but in a different way.  By nature, I'm a happy person.  In the Freudian sense, I gravitate towards what makes me happy.  But what makes me happy requires an audience, which I don't have.  So you can see my predicament.

With this next album, I harbor no illusions.  I will record it and it will receive decent airplay around the country.  I will sell three copies and it will gently drift into oblivion until I record something else, only to have the same thing happen.  I suppose those are merely the realities of the music business compounded with the even starker realities of living in this town, where the claims of supporting local music don't have to proven in any way.  Hey, just spin something crappy and local every hour and they can bring it up, come pledge time.  There's become a common practice in independent music over, say, the last 25 years.  It's poorly recorded, performed and produced.  That's become the standard.  But if you're an independent musician putting out stuff that's good in all three previous categories, it will sound wrong.  Do you sing in tune?  Yes?  Sorry.  Can you play your instrument?  Yes again!  Sorry.  And so it continues.  I am an independent musician not out of choice, but out of predicament.  Of course, I've appealed to local labels and local promotion companies without success.  I don't mean to vent all of my gripes at this time, but that's kind of what's happening.  I wish it were different.

Both albums from last year were superior efforts.  But the edge goes to the funk album that came out second.  It's good.  Go listen to it.  It's called Unobscure at Last.  I posted all of it here.  What are you waiting for??

My origin story is that I'm a jazz musician.  Since for the last 10 or so years jazz has been basically a dead art form, I've been recording pop music.  When I told people that I was going to do a funk album, the response was not exactly encouraging.  This being Seattle, I heard nothing.  People telling you that you're crazy or stupid (or both) for attempting something like this is generally considered too confrontational.  So you're stuck with silence.

I am not exactly the model of self-confidence, but when I get in the studio, I know exactly what to do.  I'm surprised by how competent I am.  I know what I want and I hit it very hard.  I hire excellent musicians, so I get great performances.  That might be the trouble right there, because in rock 'n' roll there's something exhilarating in listening to music by someone who doesn't know how to write music.  True, their careers never last long, but sometimes they produce interesting stuff.  And in the realm of independent music, when something is well-crafted, it sounds weird.  OK, so I have five - soon to be six - albums, all of which sound weird.

By the way, this track is my arrangement of the tune Seattle, which was written, or so I'm told, by a guy who only visited Spokane.  I never understood the term "beautiful child." When I was a kid, every kid around me was ugly.  Maybe I was ugly, too.  Who knows?  So I had no idea what that meant.  I still don't.  Let's face it, this is a novelty song that was a TV theme for a show about Seattle that wasn't actually filmed in Seattle.  And it wasn't very good.  They don't even show it on the local rerun channel anymore.  But the tune itself is not bad.  It's just that the skies here are no bluer here than they are anywhere else.  Perhaps the hills are a greener kind of green due to the excessive rainfall, but most of the song is pure claptrap.  Plus, the rest of the lyrics are really bad.  I wanted to change them, but that wasn't possible.  It's too much of an iconic tune.  So this is what you get: a funky, energetic marching band tune that doesn't resonate with anyone here.