triggers...

two people have asked me today to "hear some of my new stuff"...and of course, there isn't any "new stuff". hasn't been any "new stuff" for a long time.

something happened, somewhere, to water down my interest in songwriting, and i'm not sure what it was, what it is, specifically, but i just seem to have no interest in trying to create anything new. none whatsoever.

i think i've just gotten older, fatter, and far too content playing in cover bands to care much about creating anything new...that, and i think the way my first record was received did its share to cool my jets. when i admit that, all that does is underscore (for me) that other peoples' approval on a large scale was way more important to me than i think it should have been. maybe, just maybe, that was too much of a motive for me to begin with. maybe it was never as much about creating something for the sake of creativity - out of actually having something to say - as it was about trying to garner some level of notoriety. i've always hoped that wasn't true. but now, when i start to question myself about the prospect of writing, of recording something with the idea of a new record, i always come back around to a general sense of "what's the point?"...which forces me to confront some pretty awkward realities...

and the really screwy thing is that i don't really feel it when people give me complements, anyway. when people do "get it", when they do relate to something i do or are moved by one of my songs, i appreciate it but i don't feel like it really makes it through the exoskeleton. and that just tells me that there's something wrong somewhere.

now i've thrown myself behind this new blake record, and i've started recording parts for some of the basic tracks that charlie gave me during his last trip north, and I've got this great little studio in my house, for christ's sake...so what's to keep me from doing a record? there's never been a time in history when it's been easier to throw your shit against the wall...it just seems like it might have been a little too important to me up until now that it stuck.

maybe what i need to do is what i should have been doing from the outset - writing what i feel and giving it over to the people who relate to it, who are moved by it, and let them decide whether it sticks or not. i think that's what the people i respect the most have done. i don't think that john gorka, for instance, set out to conquer the masses...nor did he. what he did manage to do was to be successful enough to have a following that allows him to do what he does for a living, to make records on a regular basis, and to tour as he sees fit and do it his way.

maybe the fact that i've reached a point where i can put aside some of my old expectations to rest might make it possible to make a record without having to concern myself with whether or not dan "dipshit" deluca will review my record in city paper or not...but first one would have to write songs in order to record them to make a record...i'm not really interested in revisiting a lot of "catalog" stuff or rehashing crap that i wrote seven years ago...so it comes down to whether or not i find myself motivated to write songs or not, really.

i suppose time will tell - in the meantime, there's plenty of other stuff to work on.