I like to look at my music career as having two sides. The one side is to earn money which I do by being hired to sing and play acoustic guitar at restaurants, special events, cruiseships, etc. It means I usually have to play the classics and songs I know people love and want to hear. I have mixed feelings about doing this but if I put myself in the right mindset, it’s really not that bad because people seem to get a lot of joy out of it. I always mix my own songs in there too and I don’t play anything that I don’t like or that doesn’t say something about me. I guess this makes me some kind of walking jukebox. I earn my living this way and I use this money to travel, eat, stay alive, etc. All that of course enables me to have another side to it which is my artistic career This side is less concerned with money and more concerned with really expressing myself through my songs and lyrics. Of course occasionally these two sides merge and the goal is to eventually not have to be a friggin’ jukebox. Of course I’d rather remain free to travel and play and sing to people (even if it’s on their terms) than have to wake up at 9am and go work in an office for 12 hours (and no judgement intended on those who do that). On the other hand, it is not always as easy at it sounds because i am often really putting my whole ‘being’ – emotionally and physically – out there and this is not always easy to do if e.g. hungover, bad mood, tired. I also set my standards high when I play which means that either I play a song well or I don’t play at all. The following however is more about that other side of my career.
I am still in a position in my music career that I go play in places/venues where I have to win the audience. This is different to the musician who has his/her own audience who actually have paid to be there and who perhaps hope to experience something unique or possibly even have the night of their life.
When I am performing my songs at a bar – or wherever I am doing it – I usually sing through a microphone and my guitar is also amplified. I am able to control the level of the volume so that it is loud enough for the audience to hear me among their chirpiness or aloofness. I keep the volume at a respectable level not because I want to be background music (which is the last thing any musician wants) but because I respect the people around me and the fact that maybe not everyone came here to find a new musical hero to worship.
This ability to control my volume puts me in quite a position of power because if I wanted, I could turn myself so loud that everyone could hear only me. Of course I would probably be asked to leave if I did this intentionally and it would probably be the last time I would ever be aloud in that place. I also don’t do it because I want people to listen to me and my songs out of their own free will and not be forced to. And besides, how can I expect people who have never even heard of me all of a sudden take an interest in me? Just as I have always been quite unwilling to send demos or beg record companies to sign me or radios to play me nor do I want to sell myself in any other way, I am also unwilling to beg for anybody’s attention in a given performance. At least I try to maintain this unwillingness (i’m getting better at it) and by saying that, I hope to not seem like too much of a sellout if I occasionally play some cover song because some sweet couple asks me to. I have played enough gigs to know that if somebody is actually really interested in music, they will listen and usually after they are in my ‘zone’, they won’t leave – at least for awhile unless they disliked or were offended by something I sang or said (which happens sometimes), my playing or just happen to like a different kind of music altogether, which is okay. At this point, I have received their respect in return.
The problem with many places and many people are that it really seems like they do have to be forced to even shake them out of their worlds and introduce them to something new. They usually get forced in the end anyway whether through tv, magazines, newspapers, billboards, etc. Of course they are nowadays free to choose whether they read this magazine or that magazine but I seldomly meet people who are hungry to find their own ‘food’. Metaphorically speaking; rather than learn how to hunt with a hand built wooden spear and kill a wild animal in the jungle, they go to the supermarket and buy a nice microwave meal which will cook in 3 minutes and which they can eat while watching the latest idiot trying to become famous on Big Brother. Which meal do you think would bring the most satisfaction in the end?
Most music, films, people, even big cities have become like fast food. Mostly everything is disposable and rarely meaningful. Women read their Cosmo magazines, guys endlessly pump up their bodies so these girls will want them and then they multiply which brings us kids who are even less likely to collect Hendrix live albums.
I do believe that deep down we are all the same and I don’t tolerate any kind of discrimination against our most basic level—before we are brought up and nurtured through our different cultures and environments. But the way we act and portray ourselves after becoming adults makes us unique. I consider myself an outsider, forever standing on the outside of civilization and looking in through the window and wondering how people can be so unaware, so ignorant with this empty smile on their face. I am always looking inwards and wondering why am I like this and they are like that and thus thinking of the world as myself and then everybody else. Why am I like this? Do I intentionally try to be different just for the sake of being different and perhaps feeling special? Or am I just living in the wrong age? Should I cut my hair, buy clothes without holes in them and go get a real education/job? No thanks.