hello.
still writing… writing… unwriting… rewriting… songs over and over and over again. one would say, “marky, isn’t this is just rock music?” and i would most likely reply “yes, and thank you for reminding me.” but still, we have so much left to do in regard to finishing these songs and this album. i can’t shake this feeling that it’s not quite there yet. i’ve been going back and changing melodies and cutting parts and taking parts from other songs and digging up old lyrics and deciding that i still don’t like them and working in new lyrics and then going back to the way the songs originally were. i wish it were as simple as going into the studio and playing what you got, but for me, for whatever reason, it just isn’t. maybe it’s because i’m a bit of a neurotic perfectionist (wow, that was way too easy a conclusion to come to). maybe it’s partly due to the fact that we haven’t offered up any music in two years and i’m feeling a bit of pressure to do something worthwhile to make up for lost time. maybe it’s because i’m incredibly single minded and can only focus on one thing at a time without completely losing it. i’m in the midst of that, by the way… the losing of it. oh well, c’est la vie. i say the essence of living life is being on the brink of losing it at any given time. how else can you be sure of what matters to you? but i’m sure i’ll change my mind on that by tomorrow, after i’ve lost it.
songs and melodies and movements… they can do such great things. music can transcend race, age, religion, sex… (but we all know that now, don’t we). music has the potential to save the world. not specifically one individual piece of music per se, but the idea that there is still something that unifies us, that cuts to the quick in each of us, and that has an everlasting potential for growth. to grow past us as singular people. i would love to make good music. i would love to contribute in some small way, to be rolled into the folds of our culture (not our popular culture, mind you… tv, radio, that’s most definitely not an aspiration to linger on… but the underlying stream of our consciousness) in a grander way. hopefully with sound. sound attached to soul.
i would like to say i don’t care if my little individual pieces of music are over 6 minutes long each, or if they have (what is known in the music industry) as “hit potential!”. but i’m not sure how much of that i can claim as true. there are musicians who are doing wonderful things with sound right now, things so far outside the norm, and yet so undeniably beautiful and just… human. and i would give anything to be like them. they are doing things that will be remembered by our children and their children. i guess that’s what all of this recording process is for, just trapping sound in space to remember it. i love the individual souls that instruments, when combined with the space around them, become. they have life. they speak as if each word were their last. i want more of that in my day to day and i would love to say that i had more of a hand in creating some of it’s existence.
i miss sleep. i have currently, the lack of it that comes with being an decidedly creative person (for better or for worse) involved in a rather lengthy creative process. it has been tiresome, waiting on this album to birth herself (i’ve decided it’s a “her”. that too may change by morning). i can’t wait to get back to the studio to record again. i can’t wait for all of you to hear how much we love what we are doing. not to say that we specifically love the outcome of each and every note of every song (that would be garishly narcissistic), but more that we love the opportunity to create what we create. we love the process. the chance to move the air around with our little sound-wave inducing instruments and have that idea trapped in such a way that we can then present it to the world and give it to whoever wants it. as corporations are legally people, the creative process and it’s outcomes are spriritualy people, complete with personalities, needs, expectations, and an overal effect on the world due to their very existence (even the shitty ones). i am in love with the idea of those people (even the shitty ones), and proud to claim paternity to my small lot of them (hopefully not the shitty ones). even if they’re not exactly what i would like them to be, they are still mine and they’re what i have to offer. all that to say that i’m having a good time pretending as though these songs will become the people they are meant to be and find their place in the world.
oh, jeffro is a good producer and is going to make this album sound very good when you play it on your radios and ipods.
-marky
