Negative Narcissism

Looking back on the last week and a half of this blog, I remember that there was one solitary thought that connected each and every entry. It was a thought that happened as I sat down to type, with that long sigh "Allllrighty, what shall we type about today?" Every day has to pertain to a certain event, a trite occurrence turned into the biggest news of the world (case in point: a sauna visit where nothing happened except I got dizzy from dehydration, drank some water, sat in the sauna some more, it felt better, had a shower, ate some leftovers, watched two movies that I've seen countless amounts of times before. What's better? Writing about that or that my host accidently burned himself to a crisp and had his dog eat him because he had been deprived of his carnivorous jerky instinct all his life). Every day I avoided one topic in favor for another. That one topic happened to be my music.

Yesterday and today: NOTHING happened except music. I'm left with no choice.

Music is on the brain 24/7. If I had an illness it would be my slight obsession with my career aspirations. It's funny that I haven't actually hit the streets, the towns, the college circuit yet despite my 24/7 inner programming. Actually, that isn't that funny. It's sad to me. That happens to be my biggest shortcoming. A certain fear for putting my laziness aside and obsessing with recording.

It has to deal with the avoidance of critical thinking. Shit goes wrong every which way with Patch. Almost to the point where it's not fun anymore. No, scratch that, PATCH ISN'T FUN 90% OF THE FUCKING TIME BECAUSE OF RECORDING!!!! God, what I would give to have a little bit of luck come my way in terms of this little room o' mine. This little recording studio.

Like I said, I have an obsession with music. This makes me have high standards for recording my demos. Things need to sound super crisp and right on the money. That's where the lack of fun permeates into the mix of everything. Yesterday I really delved into a song called "Typosgraphy" (in fact, I'm putting off recording guitar tracks in it so that I can keep up with my daily quota for this '09 journal), re-recording a highly difficult solo at the beginning of the song. This took an hour and a half of both cutting and pasting good takes, EQing the sound, adding effects. I moved onto an electric guitar groove which took a half hour to record right with three different layers of guitar splayed on top of each other. I got the EQing right in 15 minutes . . . then I made the mistake of turning on an effect without first stopping the playback in the editing software. BOOM!!! Crash!!! Everything I had done in the last hour was wiped out because the file is a zipped file from a previous computer and it's a certain file type and yaddah yaddah yaddah IT ISN'T FUN!!!!

Is it fun to write songs? Sometimes. From scratch? Sometimes. From half written songs? Sometimes.

Is it fun to perform my songs? THAT is a resounding YES!!! I'm a performer. That is what I went to school for. I've deprived myself of the ONE thing I get off on. Well, technically the TWO things I get off on. 1) Performance and 2) Relationships. Why? Because I'm a performer who goes apeshit on preparation and rehearsal. It pays off in the end, yes, but in the midst of rehearsal I can't stand rehearsal. I need to write my stories, need to record my stories, show them to others, make them practice those stories to the lowest standard possible . . . and then I'll be happy. I guarantee it. I can say that with 100% certainty. Once Patch is live I'll be the happiest clam this side of the tide pool.

Right now? I'm irritable, short, grumpy. I think only about that failed effect, the deletion from too much information being stored on an effects chain for a guitar riff, the lack of a good solo, the lack of a good soundscape. FAILURE looms. Brings me glooms.

Will it be worth it? I don't know yet.

Anyway . . . what's the point of this post? To bring you up to speed on the event that has happened every day of 2009 so far. And that event is my constant desire to make Patch work and breathe in order to get a little closer to becoming a public entity. I've pushed back the date for band auditions, for sending my songs around the internets for too long. If there was one goal for 2009, it would be to take Patch live.

I don't like to talk about the behind the scenes aspects of my music. I find it to be full of jargon, boring, the same ol' same ol'. I feel that you have no connotation to what is going on behind my closed door, you will lose interest. So, I force myself to give short bursts of knowledge pertaining to Patch. I made this song, it's about this, hope you like it.

Now, videos? Behind the scenes videos? That's something of interest. There isn't any jargon there. Your eyes like to guess at what's going on. I'll try to do some video projects if there is anything worth picking up. It would be mostly me sitting in a chair strumming a guitar or playing one note on a keyboard to make a sound effect for environment's sake. But in those rare times where I'm about to strangle the microphone stand because I'm screaming my guts out . . . there's something worth watching there, I suppose. We'll see.

If I sound negative it's probably because I just watched George Carlin stand-up routines with my dinner and his sudden outbursts are bumping around in my head. I tend to take on the mannerisms of those I've recently spent time with, I've found.

The Vines -- "Spaceship"