When They Disappear, We'll Know Why

Originally this was going to be a post about whether or not we are too hard on our musicians, whether we demand too much of them creatively while delivering not nearly enough support for their troubles, and in some respects I stayed true to that aim. But for the most part, I've let the first part of that argument lie in wait (thought it may surface at some point in the future), my reasoning being that there are several drastically different musical spheres that are not compatible with one another (especially in terms of the stresses placed on artists) and it was too difficult to rectify those differences to form a clear and cogent argument or even statement of opinion. I can't justify a comparison that assumes that U2 and Taylor Swift and the world of ClearChannel-radio is operating under the same conditions that have been forced upon the Lydias and Forgive Durdens of the independent music world. Instead, I've chosen to focus on the latter part of my initial premise: the lack of support that we're offering artists.

Ugh.

Before we really get started, I'll note that this is a topic that gets me fired up. It's the kind of thing that, once I get going, can fuel an hour-long rant on the horrible inequities of music's business side. Rather than go down that long-winded road, I'm going to be as brief as possible (which is, of course, not very brief at all).

In trying to find something¹ within the world of music that seemed to encapsulate my concern that we - consumers - are leaving musicians broken, battered, and used, the line that most frequently came to mind was from a Dear Hunter song: "I will only take from you; I'll use you up. I'll use you up." A fitting description of the relationship between artists and labels/publicists/the-media/fans².

In fact, it seems that - taking that lyric metaphor one step further - independent musicians have become the proverbial "hooker with a heart of gold". Hear me out as I attempt to break this (somewhat ridiculous) comparison down. In their heart of hearts, they (bands) really want to be dancers (artists), but it's too hard to make a profit doing what they love (creating inspired works) so they have to sell themselves short and become ladies of the night (conform to marketable stereotypes) in order to put food on the table (in order to put food on the table). In both cases we end up with a protagonist who sells themselves and their ideals short while receiving only empty dollars and regret for what they've sacrificed.

It may be that the vast majority of blame for these circumstances falls at the feet of record labels and tour-organizers/venues who ruthlessly hoard profits, exiling and blacklisting bands that don't meet their steep demands. But we consumers are at fault as well. We demand more and more from our musicians. More quantity at a higher quality. And we give less and less for it.

[Excuse me while I climb up on my soapbox for a minute] I count myself among the minority when I say that I don't download music for free (please be offended by this, therefore proving me wrong). I buy my albums the old fashioned way: with money. Artists ply their trade for a living and theft is theft, whether it be from an artist or a farmer or a haberdasher. I understand the allure of being able to get something you want without having to pay for it (with the added perk of not having to walk into a store where you might actually be identified). The internet - and its anonymity - has made this incredibly easy. Again, I understand why people do this - I am aware that "money is tight" and that people are "sure that the band would rather I listen for free than not listen at all" (perhaps the most-cited rationale for this trend, oftentimes followed by the derisive "I thought it was about music and not money, anyway"). But there are consequences for these actions - we just tend not to look past our own fingers, so we don't see them. [Stepping off of soapbox]

Bands literally breakup because of the economic climate in the music scene. For example, check out this horribly depressing quote from the now-defunct Juliana Theory:

"Financially, we would have to take regular jobs now to keep this thing going. We swore to ourselves years ago that we would not let that happen. We've always given 100 percent to this thing and it would be an insult to our fans and to ourselves to do it less than 100 percent because we would be spending most of our time making a living elsewhere. It's easy when you are 19, living in your parents' house, but when you've got bills to pay and people counting on you, real life hits you in the face. We are left with no other choice than to end the band. Like many of the bands that we looked up to when we started all of this, we die early and nearly forgotten."

Jesus. That's horrible. The last line alone is incredibly depressing - partly because I've seen it happen to several bands that I love and also because (in some very small way), I've experienced it on my own. But TJT is not alone. Bands such as RX Bandits have made statements proclaiming the need for fans to tangibly support the bands that they love, lest those bands cease to exist.

If there is any silver-lining to this state of being, it would be two Gatsbys American Dream albums: In the Land of Lost Monsters and Gatsbys American Dream; both deliver brilliant music that was inspired by the band's terrible dealings with labels and promoters as they struggled up-hill to survive in such a disastrous economic environment³. On the other hand, the members of Gatsbys were so tired out from their Sisyphean battle that they didn't even tour in support of that self-titled album (dropping off an already scheduled tour, no less), which ended up being their final work - too tired to continue in the face of such unyielding adversity, they broke up after its release.

The point is, we take and take and take, but we don't give back. We don't buy records. We don't go to shows. We don't buy t-shirts or contribute in any way other than commenting on message boards about how we love bands and all the while we watch as they die of aesthetic starvation. Hell, I'm guilty too - I haven't been to nearly enough shows lately.

We can't keep demanding albums and music as the artist's responsibility, while nonchalantly shrugging off our own responsibility to give them funding enough to keep making music. Does a few people buying CDs counteract the deprivation of funds for which labels and organizers are responsible? Probably not. But, maybe more than anything else, I find that this is a matter of principle. It's unlikely that you can get any band a new record contract or a new touring agreement that will be more beneficial to them, so we have to do what we can - if you love a band and if you want them to keep making music, buy their albums. If we all pay a few dollars for albums, thus allowing musicians to keep making more albums, isn't this better than getting only one album for free? I feel like the answer is self-evident. But I've been known to be wrong.





¹ Outside of Gatsbys American Dream and their oft-linked manifesto.

² This heartfelt post by John Gourley of Portugal. The Man also applies - and may inspire a later The River, The Tiger, The Fire post - particularly his opinion that downloading music is justified as a taste-test, provided that you buy the albums that you like - a position that I fully support.

³ In the Land of Lost Monsters is one of my all-time favorite albums and includes a 'thank you' note on the album's spine for not having downloaded the album; ironically enough, in the wake of the GAD's death, the EP is now available from the band for free download.


NOTE: I'm fairly certain that this post didn't apply to 99% of the people who read it and that the other 1% think I'm an asshole; to both parties I say: thank you for listening to my rant (now go pre-order this).

The Digital Deluge

We are drowning in a sea of information. Because of this blog, I am among those at fault. The internet will ultimately destroy history.

This has been said before. It will be said again. And each and every instance will be granted immortality on the internet. By allowing information to exist while only consuming microscopic amounts of space, the internet has essentially removed the selective processes of history. We no longer need to pick and choose what's important and what's worth a place in limited number of lines that constitute our history books. Not that written history is a flawless beast, but in the Age of the Internet we've replaced the selectively biased accounts of handwritten history with the watered down excess that comes with chronicling every minute event that happens. People and events no longer have to earn their way into history books for records of their existence to be kept; instead, that remembrance is limited only by their degree of willingness to shamelessly self-promote their blog or website. This is, of course, hideously embodied by Twitter, where brilliant musings such as "OMG Hangover was so funy. making a sandwich. txt me!" will live on in the virtual sphere until their untimely demise at the assimilating hands of SkyNet (unless maybe that was John Connor's tweet, but I digress). In a world where all things are remembered, all things are painfully equal. (Just ask Funes: when every aspect of every experience is remembered in exact detail, how do you think abstractly? When everything is unique, how does one make the generalizations that we, as humans, need?)

Aside from a sweeping concern about history and cultural memory in general, I am more specifically interested in the history and cultural memory of art. As someone who hopes to find a future in the field, I am deeply concerned by art - past and present - and how history holds it. We are able to look back at past civilizations and gain some kind of insight to their societies by means of the tried and true "what the hell survived this long?" test. The answers have always been works that were great in scale (ex. The "Visible From Space" Great Wall of China) or, as is more often the case with art, depth (ex. The Republic). If something survived it was due to some virtue that warranted remembrance. The Great Wall is an enormous monument to a turbulent and dedicated time in one region's history; it's physical size alone ensured that it would be remembered. The Republic was one of the most brilliant pieces of political philosophy ever written and because enough people were interested in its subject matter, the work was well-discussed and relied upon by great thinkers throughout the years. What's going to have been discussed enough during our time on Earth to survive in the distant future? Well, I feel secure in asserting that it won't be Between the Heart and the Synapse or A Canticle for Leibowitz (a book about historical remembrance, no less) but rather Twilight and ...Baby One More Time. Great. But this is a product of the ClearChannel-led commercialization of the mass-media rather than the complete degradation of society, right? Well, even if that's true (and it may not be - more on this in a bit), it doesn't solve our archaeological quandary.

There are quality works coming into existence today. This, I hope, is a statement for which I don't have to vehemently argue. Modern technology (read: the internet) has allowed an unprecedented number of artists to release works of brilliance to the public without the support of greedy marketing corporations who would rather pump the Jonas Brothers down 12-year old throats than worry about that most dreaded of three-letter words: art. But while self-production and publication is a growing means of communicating valuable artistic vision (see The Dear Hunter, Thrice, Radiohead) it is also a means for communicating horrific artistic failure because for every one artist that uses this freedom to give the public access to a work of genius and integrity, about 12,000 use it to promote something created hastily and haphazardly in a basement in the hopes of snagging fifteen minutes of ill-advised fame. This isn't a condemnation of those artists (as you may be aware, I am, in some respects, one of them), in fact, I fully support the ability of anyone to make and share art, but there are repercussions. When looking back on how the internet has affected art, which category - the few visionaries or the millions of hacks - do you think will survive in the memories of our progeny? Hell, forget the people of the future, when you think of art on the internet, which do you think of? I'm guessing that what you're thinking of is closer to this than to this.

So, what we're dealing with here is a world where two scenarios can unfold: A) Due to physical remnants (i.e. the huge number of copies of N'Sync albums and Stephanie Meyer books that exist), future generations will assume that we were incompetent fools that bathed in boy bands and pop starlets whilst devouring the mind-shatteringly awful world of sparkling vampires, or B) Due to the overflow of self-published books and self-produced music in the virtual world, future generations will think that art - as a means of social commentary or a dialogue on the human condition - has died and that the term has taken on new meaning as a DIY project that every single person partakes in, leaving a flood of material, none of which is worth remembrance in the least.

I was going to make a joke here about how Western culture has fallen so far that, in the end, works like Twilight and the Jonas Brothers 3-D Concert Experience would actually serve as accurate historical records of our time, but - after some reflection - I couldn't find any humor in it. Because it's true. That's what will be remembered of us, because, for the most part, that's who we - as members of this culture - have become. Childlike narratives, sugar-coated over-produced melodies, and flashing lights are all that it really takes (and, really, you only need one of those) to enrapture us. As a culture, we lack the ability (or more likely, desire) to hold anything in our mind for more than a few moments; we want everything that we touch - art most certainly included - to be easily digestible and ultimately disposable. We don't just want instant gratification, we want repeated instant gratification. Any entertainment that demands more of us is frustrating and uncomfortable and, as such, we abandon it as soon as possible in favor of the sweeter and smoother tastes with which we are familiar. I could probably keep going on and on about this cultural psyche and how it will inevitably affect how we as a people are remembered (and I'd sound increasingly jaded and cynical all the while), but no one wins if I do that (and no one enjoys it either), so I'll try to wrap this thing up.

Art may be marginalized, but it will never die - there's a reason that horrible cliches like that have always been around. (Though, I have to admit, it seems strange to cite a repetitious cliche as the salvation of individual thought; it invites discussion on all manner of paradoxes concerning what actually has cultural staying power: the vast plains of unquantifiable creative thought, or an easily memorable aphorism, as it is unclear whether that aphorism is serving as a representation of or a substitute for that very vague notion with which we began. Are these two definitions inherently mutually exclusive? Is there a possibility that...I'm sorry, what was I talking about? I seem to have forgotten.)

Fitzgerald

a day like all the rest, or so it seemed. brilliant
       crimson dressed the oaks.
pale grey, the sky hung like bed curtains on a morning
        when you wake, unsure
of where you are, disturbed by a dream that was
        as vibrant and real as life itself,
bearing the hideous spectre of death.

on the Water. out where I feel at home. the waves
        are rising, row after row
like the pews in St. Paul’s. at mass, the pastor said that
        God is everywhere.
in these waves, in the black clouds, in the taconite hidden
        in the hull, in you and
in me. in the storm.

Anderson, I should not have turned you away.
        “we are holding our own.”
or so I said. I am a fool. the men I lead…these men and
        their angelic wives,
the unwritten futures of their children, all the lights that
        my ignorance has extinguished.
I am sorry.


the captain always stays fast with the ship,
but there was no way out,
so the crew are still manning their posts.
we were swallowed whole
by cold, cold Superior.



As anyone who knows me well can attest, I have a fascination with open water and with the ships that traverse it. This poem, which began in late 2006 and - after a long time on the shelf - was completed in early 2008, is about one such vessel's unfortunate fate.

Prologue

GENEVA, Switzerland. An Argentinian man lies upon a bed, whispering fragments of Spanish and English that read like clairvoyant riddles. His breathing is shallow and his body frail - wracked by the cancer that has devoured his insides. With a final exhalation, the man - whose influence will be felt in his language and on his art for centuries - dies. So it goes.

In truth, I do not know the final words that passed Jorge Luis Borges' lips before they fell stiff and silent. I know even less about the vast experiences of his life. He died on June 14th, 1986, only a few months before I was born. What I know about Borges I learned mainly in the Senegalese savanna, where I spent some odd number of weeks excavating a lost civilization while burying myself in his words.

Borges never wrote a novel. He stated, quite simply, that it was beyond his means and the span of his attention. Reading his work, it does not take long to realize what he meant. A Borges novel could only have come to fruition as the culmination of a lifetime's worth of toil and labor. Every letter that the man wrote was carefully chosen and even more carefully placed. There are no errant words in the body of his writings; each word bears meaning and moves the narrative forward with purpose. His writing manages to simultaneously be both as soul-stirring as poetry and as dense as a textbook.

But my romance with the written word did not begin with Borges; instead - long before I had read The Library of Babel or The Circular Ruins - it first took shape in the form of lyricism. As I grew and matured as a songwriter, tackling more elaborate subjects and developing a sense of self-awareness, I realized that my desire to weave narrative structures through an inherently poetic lyric form would require that I make the most out of each syllable at my disposal. It is not surprising, then, that when I began reading Borges for the first time, I felt a philosophical bond with him. Not that I am - in any way - putting myself at (or remotely near) Borges' level. We are not equals, but rather believers in the same mythos: I feel the same sense of brotherhood with Borges that any practicing Catholic might share with the Pope.

Despite - or perhaps because of - my affinity for his work, I am wary of imitating it. It is a fine thing to admire an author, but it is folly to emulate one. So maybe it is not surprising that, for many months now, I have been attempting that which Borges denied himself: the writing of a novel. The process is long and arduous and, at this point in time, much farther from conclusion than I would have hoped. But I am not laying down my dream and will soldier on with it until it is done (though any author will tell you that no work is ever truly finished). In the meantime, however, I will admit that I miss the joy of completing a work and that this - my craving for that sense of conquest - has driven me to start this blog, where posts can move from inspiration to publication in only a few hours (and be forgotten by the reader in less than that).

In addition to his fiction, Borges was an accomplished essayist and correspondent and, because of the latter, I am inclined to believe that he would have found great merit in a tool that allows people from every walk of life to say something interesting and share it with the world. In short: I think Borges would have been a blogger himself. Its brevity and accessibility would have, I think, won him over.

But Borges is gone, and I remain, writing in a time that he never saw and maybe never imagined. I do not know where this blog will go or when it will end. Many posts will undoubtedly be frivolous, and some will be needlessly serious, there will be lists and there will be expositions, queries and conclusions, certainties and mysteries, poetry and prose. But, at this moment - here at the outset - I am not sure what will fill this space. I only know from where it will come.

-----

In his essay A New Refutation of Time, Borges - who concludes by refuting his titular refutation - states,

"Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges."

Four and a half thousand miles from home, in a sweltering land, I saw a beautiful grace and truth in those lines. I found a part of myself in those words, and I tried to make them my own. In some respects, I did.

I am the river, I am the tiger, I am the fire.

I penned those words as lyrics in my notebook, one line among many, stationed amid a myriad of references - to Borges and others - but the song was never finished and the lyrics never used. It seems to me that that is how it has always been: the words are written but they are never read. I would change that, if I could. I suppose that's all I'm trying to do now. And if this blog is to be an extension of myself, open for all to see, then it seems fitting that I should choose words that are both a part of me and a part of the outside world - the very world that Borges found so irrefutably real - as a name for this space. Inspired by (and borrowing from) a great man, I wrote these words down once. I believed them then, and I believe them now.

I am the river, I am the tiger, I am the fire. This is who I am.