validated

*now playing: rickie lee jones, "last chance texaco"


this weekend, i'm driving four hours to upstate new york to pick up a new console for my home studio, which i'll probably have installed and ready to go before the weekend is up.

and i'm struck, today, by the fact that i haven't really done much work in the studio over the past few months that didn't involve someone else's projects or songs, and it cultivates some thought regarding what, exactly, my role is these days.

i'm a songwriter. or at least i was a songwriter, once upon a time. blake and i were discussing this on the phone a couple of days ago, as he seems to be at something of a crossroads himself regarding what his motivations have historically been, and what it is that makes him do what he's doing...i've never made a secret about the fact that i considered blake one of the best songwriters i've heard or worked with, and i immediately think (as most people do in a situation like this) that, with his talent, motivation shouldn't be that hard to come by.

it dawns on me, though, when i make a statement like that about someone else, that the same could very well be said of myself.

bragging and touting my talents isn't something that comes easily for me. i was dragged into this world through the old south and taught humility, and can't stand braggadocio or arrogance in people to this day. but, the fact is, i'm pretty damn good at what i do, musically. i'm probably one of the most sensitive musicians that you could possibly hope to have in your corner - i play what's required of the song, not what best suits some innate need to steal the spotlight or prove what a great player i am. i come up with consistently tasteful parts, and i'm pretty damn versatile, too...i play a lot of different instruments well.

the astute reader is asking, by now, what any of this has to do with songwriting.

nada.

therein lies the most obvious clue regarding where my motivations lie these days.

i just don't feel as though i have anything to say, as a songwriter. and i'm pretty sure this is due, in large part, to the perceived reception my last album received.

"what?" you're saying. "that was a great record! the songs were great, you did a great job putting them to tape, you had a great producer and stellar musicians on it, guys who'd worked with pros...you got a glowing review in Performing Songwriter magazine, and you had people that you respected singing your praises all over the place! so what's your goddamn problem?"

what's my problem, indeed. see, all those things are true. it was a great record. i did have people that i respected gushing over it. a musician friend who became a friend largely as a result of having heard that record told me, point blank, that it changed his life...that it made him reconsider his priorities as a writer, to dig deeper and examine things more closely.

and then, you might ask, how much more fucking validation do you need than that, dick?

and you'd be well within your rights to do so.

the answer is...

well, i think the answer isn't quite so simple as yes or no. i don't think it's validation that i wanted in the first place. i think that it was acceptance on some level that i never quite got to...i think that's what i was shopping for.

but i think that the larger issue, for me, was that i was ill-prepared for what was required of me on a business/networking/schmoozing/asskissing level. i think i was naive enough to think that i'd find a good manager who'd insulate me from having to deal with all that...but that wasn't very realistic of me.

the fact is, the music business in our day and age doesn't allow for you to live outside the machinery and write good songs and play great shows and have that be it. you have to actually get out there yourself, go to the release parties and the conferences and the little happenings that are constantly going on and keep your name and face in front of people and sell yourself every time you leave your house. there's such a glut of available supply - the demand moves on to the next supplier if you spend too many nights out of the slipstream. right now, there's a dozen guys waiting for john mayer to take a deep breath - the second he does, they'll elbow him out of the way and take their one album, fifteen minute turn.

this is the cycle. or, i should say, this is the cycle now.

this is the machine we've built...the internet ready, 500 channel, always-on, short attention span machine.

as an aside...one of my favorite bloom county cartoon strips finds opus and portnoy sitting together with the TV remote, surfing through channels...and opus remarks, "you know, there was a time when you could sit down with your family in front of the television and watch milton berle or jack benny and know that most of america was watching the same thing you were...". ultimately, they land on "bikini babes of the bahamas" and portnoy asks, "you think uncle miltie would approve?"

the moral being....

the tides have shifted, and no one holds large chunks of attention for very long.

i want to be ok with this. in a lot of ways, i think i am ok with this. i'm not really that concerned with the fancies of the rest of the world until we do something completely ignorant as a populace and elect a president from texas who sucks the nation into an unnecessary war that has no logical motives, sending american citizens to die while we all sit around with "god bless america" t-shirts on, slapping "support our troops" stickers on our SUV's. then i get concerned with the general direction of things...but from an artistic standpoint, i don't want to play to the mainstream. i want to do what i do for a small but appreciative group of people.

and you know what? that's what i'm doing.

what i've realized in the time that's gone by since 1998 is that...yeah, ok, i'm a good songwriter. but -- i get a serious rush out of being able to do things on the instruments that i play that not a lot of other people can do. and when i'm doing sideman work, my validation or acceptance or whatever it is that i need from sources outside myself comes directly from whoever i'm playing with at the time. if blake or charlie or marty or whomever my collaborator might be is happy, and the circuits are working, then that's what i need to get me through the night. that makes me happy.

would i consider going down the songwriting path again? it's never a matter of "never", but i don't hear that particular call at the moment. i'm having too much fun right now, playing with the people i'm playing with and doing my thing with my white trash trailer park classic rock cover band.

life is good...when i get out of its way and just let shit happen the way it's supposed to.



* no, i didn't change it yet....now leave me alone.