I am between contracts with the university and the gap of time is fairly large. It’s a long time to be idle and without income, so I’ve put most of my energy into formalising the operation of my own audio production business. I have given it a name! Please make welcome Stormformer Productions. Getting serious about things has caused me to learn a little bit about the Australian Tax system, how to keep basic records and how to better organise projects and communications with clients. Now it is a new financial year I have to collate all my records and find a decent small business accountant to help me get my tax in order. It has been slow going with all this because I’m not very good at thinking about finance or document administration. But I’m learning.

I’ve also made some investments into audio equipment to make sure I can do the required production work at a professional level. First off, I badly needed to get better converters, something better than cheap consumer grade soundcards. So, with Simon’s advice, I went for the most transparent option affordable to me: The Mytek Stereo96 ADC and DAC units. With some soundcards you can hear how the sound is bent and coloured as it goes in and out of the computer: but not with the Myteks. If they were mirrors reproducing an image, then they are crystal clean and undetectable. Because of this, I no longer hesitate to record something, or send audio in and out from the computer through outboard equipment. To connect the Myteks to the PC I have got a TC Konnekt 24D from Simon. This allows me to connect via TOSLINK optical, have extremely low jitter, and have bit-perfect routing within the system. Already I can use this set up to master with outboard gear going out and in at 44.1khz. However I have some projects at 96khz that will need to go down to 44.1khz – to do that I need a second soundcard with optical. So on order is a M-Audio Transit card which should allow me to do that dual function while retaining a bit-perfect transfer using the Myteks as the clock master. Pretty geeky stuff eh? Well, it’s important to get it right for paying clients. And the sound is just fantastic.

Simon has also been exploring the world of vacuum audio pre-amp valves or tubes, and has been encouraging me to do the same. Again on his recommendation, I bought the ART Pro VLA II tube compressor, for use both in mastering and channel based compression. The stock unit comes with some so-so tubes, but many people “re-tube” units like these to put in their favourite tubes. Now, tubes aren’t precisely linear in frequency response, but they have a very nice ‘colour’ to them that brings out desirable harmonics and tone. After a bit of research I decided that the best tubes that would suit my approach, tastes and needs, would be the 12AU7 ECC82 Telefunkens, with ribbed plates. They are regarded for having a very open and clear sound, with a tasteful amount of high end extension. Fortunately, there is ‘new old stock’ available: tubes made in the 50s, 60s and 70s that have never been used. I found a matched pair for sale and happily paid the rather large price tag on them. Once I had my compressor I opened it up and re-tubed the unit with the Telefunkens. You have to ‘play the tubes in’ for about 24 hours straight with general music. While I was doing that I was checking in and listening to the progress: it started off with an excellent open sound, but as they warmed up I could hear the brightness and dynamic qualities of the tubes coming to life! They just sound stunning, but linear enough to use in mastering. I’ve not got into the use of the compressor so much yet, still learning how to make it talk – but the time will come.

More photos on my Flickr page if you’re interested.

What I have been doing is some test mastering with material from Distaudio and Hunz. With a very lite DSP chain beforehand to to make things safe, I send the audio out to the compressor unit and play with the levels only. The tubes are like tape: different levels bring out different saturation colours. I just finely tweak it unit I hit the sweet spot and record the results. I still have the Tascam BR-20T reel to reel deck on hand for much the same sort of task. I recently re-calibrated the deck and have it sounding really nice and as linear as possible. But, tape sounds gooey and all over the the place compared to running through good tubes. Nevertheless, I have been using the deck to run out stems for saturation processing. Some of my more rock/metal productions have been enjoying this approach. It’s especially good on acoustic drums and guitars to bring out texture and harmonics. Not so precise for synths or electronic sounds.

Most of my production work thus far has been for Distaudio and Hunz. Both projects have been really exciting and rewarding to work on. Watch this space for updates on when those two projects finish. I’ve also written another article for Renoise In:Depth, and have more planned. And finally, I’ve been working with Alex Zaia to make a website for Stormformer Productions, which you can preview here. I’ll announce things more formally with a full breakdown on services once that project is complete. In meantime, if you need audio production work done, please get in touch.

I know I have been banging on about it for years, but it finally feels like I’m getting some seriously consistent work done on my next album, The Paradox. In fact, I think I’m doing some of the best mixing I’m ever done, and the songs are transforming from obscure and awkward suites to assertive and clear music. What has helped a great deal is the use of Google Document’s spreadsheet tool. I’ve been using that tool with clients to organise large projects into stages of production (it is also handy for sharing production notes over distance). My spreadsheet has the songs listed down the left, and the headings across the top are as follows:

• Renoise Mix Translation
• Stems Rendered, Reaper session created
• Select Stems run to tape
• Guitars recorded / mixed
• Vocals recorded / mixed
• Extra production notes
• Final Mix
• Album flow and continuity edits
• Mastering
• Album artwork / lyrics / credits = PDF
• Track artworks
• FLACs / tagging

As I achieve each of these stages I’ll mark each cell with “Done” or whatever relevant comment. Seeing all the work planned out for me like this has helped motivate me to work systematically on all the tracks. Already I have a few cells marked “Done”. There’s so much to do, but hopefully I can keep this momentum going to finally fishing this bloody album that’s been hanging over my head since 2004. I make it sound like it is a curse, but it isn’t: there’s a lot of music in here that I’m very excited about. It just takes me forever to get it right and finish it.

Sometimes I feel like I’m just only hanging in there. Winter is tough for me, although I know it shouldn’t have to be so. I find the cold gnaws at your resolve, puts you in a state of agitation that opens the doors to a blackness so cruel and vile. It’s very hard to fight that malicious river of wrongness off, hard to maintain resolve… I falter and have moments of such negativity, only to later regret it and swear that I’ll never feel like that again. It gets pretty lonely here all day, and I miss the company of real people. But there aren’t many real people I vibe with and feel like I can be myself with, so it is not like I can just go down the pub and that’s that. Anyway, I’m trying and it’s up to me to kick my own arse into productivity. And in a month or so the weather will warm again and I’ll find peace in the warmth and beauty outside.

Thanks for reading.

After much personal drama, both in my own head and with my partner R – we have decided strongly to give up on this whole Brisbane idea and move back to Armidale. More on why we came to this realisation later; but already R has an excellent job secured in her interest-area and I have been chasing work back at UNE. And, it looks like we have a rental lined up as well – a cat friendly RSPCA friend has offered an old house close to town. R’s job starts very, very soon and the rental may be available in much the same time – which means we could be negotiating a move back up that hill to New England quick smart! To sum up without the rambling, we’re both really happy about this and I’m looking forward to getting back to that lifestyle, and I am looking forward to getting back to a stable headspace to pick up my artistic projects again.

Even before the move to Brisbane I was becoming aware of a lost feeling between R and I, and a growing amount of undefined agitation. This sensation became even worse when we got here. I felt really confused and kept telling myself to ‘think positive of the situation’ and keep on with the Brisbane idea. I couldn’t easily get work as an audio technician and my free lance work was never going to pay for much. So I tried to get more training to broaden my professional options. I got the Certificate IV Workplace and Training Certificate successfully – but I needed more qualifications to actually be able to teaching something in the adult education sector. I had a real hard time getting some straight answers out of South Bank Institute of Technology about whether or not their Vocational Graduate Certificate in Adult Literacy and Numeracy Teaching course was the ‘right fit’ for me. A little bit frustrated and confused I though “bugger it” and enrolled in the course anyway, at an expense of $3000 upfront. Well, it turns out the expected study load and level of difficulty was a little beyond me at the moment, given that I’ve not studied at a formal academic level since 2003. But there were other things going wrong that added to my struggle…

I just couldn’t concentrate. I could feel myself gradually slipping into a bit of an emotional hole, fed by these factors- loosing confidence due to not being able to find a job, still confused why there was all this strain between R and I, and being in an odd lifestyle of city living that is still all rather new to me as a person who has always lived in modest regional towns. Out of this fragile zone came all the nasty black thoughts that had been sitting there in the background all along. Self doubt. Sadness. Weirdness. Emotional agony. Second guessing. And above all else in epic proportions: GUILT. I name this fucking mental disease for what it is: a latent pattern of thinking that has been so ingrained in me that it was only a matter of time before a vulnerable moment would appear and I would fall prey to it’s maddening illogical cycle. I’ve broken down to wailing tears and destructive anguish in the last few month more times than I have ever before. I would feel so guilty that I couldn’t even bare to think of working on music, let alone making the attempt and being filled with doom and uneasy terror.

There came a point somehow that I realised that, yes, I have a very real problem.

In fact, I had started realise that I was putting pressure on R to somehow fix this problem for me, or somehow help me escape to some fantasy where the problem didn’t appear to exist. It became plain as day that this was a poisonous way to think! I had started to make my happiness contingent on external things, when really my happiness is my own responsibility and my own to sort out by myself. All this made me think that really I’ve had this problem for a very long time, maybe even since I was a teenager. Periods of calm like the last 5 years in Armidale in a stable job and environment had only protected and coveted the problem from raising it’s ugly head. But it has been deeply driving me all along. Fuck it, I became so over breaking down and being an absolute muddle that it was time to do something about it. So I went to a GP, here at the local mall. Pretty quickly after assessment I was recommended to see a Mental Health Psychologist and receive formal assessment and a short program of therapy. The doctor also gave me a written certificate which I’ve used to add evidence to an application to South Bank Institute of Technology for a partial refund of the $3000 I paid to do this course. I’d like to get part of that money back and I’m withdrawing my enrollment. I’m not risking failure and wasting that money just because I’m not up for it in this time of my life. I’ve got bigger more important problems to work through.

I realise now that for at least the last 12 months I have been pushing, pushing R into joining me on this idea of living in Brisbane. And that pushing has come from me as a faulty way of me trying to avoid dealing with my own problems, without even knowing that I was doing that. I seriously thought, mistakenly thought, that moving here would make me happy, would sort out whatever vague tensions I had about my career or relationship, and would be delivered unto some sub-tropical bliss in a parade of cultural opportunity. How wrong was I! Brisbane is a crazy place! Sure there are some good things about this lifestyle, but it’s certainly not for us. I had a day of casual work up at Redcliffe TAFE and the hour long car commute through traffic completely set it in stone for me: people crawl like this every working day for years and happily call it ‘life’. Well, no thanks. I’d rather be back in a quite room in a quiet street working on my music. Ride my bike to work. No traffic stress. The feeling of community in Armidale is a very real thing, and traveling back there for visits has made me realise that I took it all for granted. I really regret pushing R so selfishly for so long, when all along she knew she didn’t want to be here. She grew up in Brisbane and is so totally over it. It’s crazy, I had to come here myself to get it out of my system, dive into the deep end and really appreciate what it’s like to get wet. Lesson learned I guess! I will never ever again put that much pressure on someone I love in the name of something so vague as a feeling that “I want to go there and I don’t know why”. Never again!

I’ve seen Porcupine Tree live and felt ‘not there’ even though I appreciated it as a great live gig. I saw Devin Townsend live and felt so absolutely terrible within myself that I hardly know whether or not it was a great gig or not. Time and drama passed. Then I saw Massive Attack at the Brisbane Riverstage and had an amazingly good time! Best gig I’ve been to in ages! Read the reviews. Brisbane can be such a cool city to visit for gigs. Just to visit. Not to live in.

I can hear some people saying “what about your music, won’t being in a city help you with a musical career?”. I now say, not so. Even if I were the most amazing creative album producer in Australia I think Brisbane isn’t really the right city to be doing this in – maybe Melbourne would be the place. But even then I don’t think city living is for me. And the reality of the situation is that I’m not ready for beginning that process proper. I don’t have an album ready, my performance skills aren’t sharp enough, and I haven’t worked up the confidence and tenacity for taking on the impossible task of gaining some tiny slice of success in the dwindling music industry. No. I’d rather be back in Armidale, working slowly on my projects, practicing and developing things, than being in any city slaving away pushing music that isn’t fully formed in an unconfident way to an audience that’s probably only mildly interested at best. I’d rather chip away steadily on my music and get it out there via the web to people all around the world who are truly interested. I can always play live at the Armidale Club if i want to develop my confidence. I can always take that show to a city if it ever gets that serious, just like other touring bands do. Having a wholesome lifestyle is much more important than ‘suffering for your art’ in some place you don’t want to be. Each to their own.

Hopefully I can get a job back at UNE in some sort of area that uses a cross between my technology skills and my desire to help educators in an ethical way. And hopefully I can eventually get something part time again so I can have ample spare time to work on music. I need a job. I need that regularity, otherwise I flounder around. I think it’s only a matter of time until something good turns up. I’ll even work casual in new areas just to get me from A-B. I’m really looking forward to being back in that humble, low key environment. Yeah, I moaned about some things about Armidale, the cold and gloom in particular; but really no place is perfect. I used to love all those aspects of Armidale! If you’re happy with who you are and what your lifestyle is, then I think you can live anywhere. Knowing what you want, specifically, is half the problem. I’ll be working hard on actively challenging my negative thoughts, these counterproductive ways of thinking. It’ll be a long slow process.

I’m winding up my mixing and mastering freelance work for good. I’m just not interested in it anymore and I’d rather be using that time on other things. However, I’m finishing off some cool work, including an awesome album project by Distaudio. I also finished mastering the latest Helvetikone EP Numerical Exercises, which has been released here. I may be helping local Australian acts in the future, and maybe some overseas friends. But no more open-door commercial work.

Which leads to another development: I’m in negotiating with taktik of the Renoise team about taking up a paid role to write an ongoing series of blog articles about audio and song production using Renoise. Some of you might remember Renoise In:Depth – this is where I’ll be writing from. I feel writing about production techniques in an open/public manner is a much more efficient way of helping people, rather than working with a select few who want me to do most the work for them. Writing is less time consuming than mastering, less monotonous than going over endless audio material doing very fiddly detailed work. This knowledge can be taught, people can adapt these ideas for their own – all that needs to be done is to put the knowledge into words within the Renoise context. Production advice is common on the internet, but there still isn’t a lot of quality material on how to use Renoise to do all this. Our little community will hopefully benefit from this. So, if you have any ideas about articles and things you’d like to see me write about, then please let me know. I’m aiming to start publishing by the end of April, after the move is all done.

There’s probably much more to say, but that’ll do for now. Thanks so much for your interest and support.

I have done some work to set up a little website to serve as a front end for my low-key business project ‘mmd mastering’. You can visit the site here. The service I am offering is mixing and mastering of audio material, negotiated per project with each client. If you would like to use this service check out the site’s FAQ and use the contact form to get in touch.

It’s early days at the moment with the site’s design and function, but there’s enough blurb to let you know the ins and outs of the service. I’ll also be using that site to feature some of the finished work I’ve done for clients – covering all sorts of unexpected styles of music. In terms of a business it’s baby steps for me seeing that I’ll be doing the work in my spare time outside of my day job. I’ll be initially focusing on a Renoise-clientel to inject some sonic love into that community. If things go steady I’ll evolve from there.

This situation of course is due to my own lack of assertion and not the fault at all of other people who make requests of my time, ideas and energy. That’s worth repeating: it’s not your fault I’m behind in what I want to do, that’s something I have caused myself. With that point being clear I can now express intention to be more assertive and create workable compromises to attain my goal. I’ve already stated recently here that I intend to finish off existing collaborative project in the next few months freeing my time in the studio for my own work, but assertions need to be made to prevent future complications. This comes from acknowledgment of personal rights, in this case my rights as a composer and creative music-person. This could work for any musician or creator, and could apply to yourself. So…

An assertive bill of rights:

1. We have the right to turn down invitations for working collaboratively. No matter how small and ‘temporary’ the project may be, we do not have to squeeze it in.
2. We have the right to be in a collaboration but choose and be clear about our level of engagement, which includes a clear and flexible statement of when the projects ends.
3. We have the right to not play live if we do not want to, irrespective of how much others want to play live for whatever reason.
4. We have the right to say we are not interested in helping or paying attention to another person’s project.
5. We have the right to pull out of a project if we feel it is a necessary priority, either in deferral or permanently.
6. We have the right to not accept work even if it is of a commercial nature, as money and worry about money poisons creative intentions if allowed to dominate.
7. We have the right to work on our own projects at whatever level of our choosing without guilt or acceptance of vilification or manipulation (via guilt) from others.
8. We have the right to our own leisure time and time for recuperation outside of music in whatever amount we see fit without accepting guilt projected from others.
9. We have the right to not work on music at all, even for no apparent reason.
10. We have the right to honor the natural expression of our inspiration and work as best we can to enjoy creation to ensure the best possible expression of it, and therefore we have the right to nurture that process with or without other people involved as we see fit.

If the above rights were completely asserted and attained that would be an ideal situation – and ideals are rarely completely reached. Practical experience shows that people will come up and put pressure on you, sometimes irrespective or your assertive position being clear. Depending on the situation this is where it is pragmatic to make a ‘workable compromise’ via empathetic communication. This still retains yourself as being the only judge of what you will do with your time and allows you to negotiate it relative to your desires and rights. An example of this may be: “I can do my album, but for fun I might go play live improv with xyz every now and then”, or similar. You still retain the right to change your mind and give as much as you want to expressed via assertion to the people attempting to ask things of you (either in open friendly way or right to way that are downright maliciously manipulative). You can retain your friendships, networked associates, clientele, peers and so on as much as you like if you assert what you want and clearly set up with empathy a workable compromise that attempt to keep both parties in a state of mutual understanding.

I want to do this now.

A recent trip to the coast and Brisbane to throw myself into the middle of ‘normal consumer culture’ of malls, record shops, party music and listening to radio like Triple J has produced the following vague realizations for me. It does indeed feel like music saturation is at an all time high yet in line with this the depth of appreciation of music is respectively shallow. More hasn’t equated to a ‘better experience’ nor has it led to an improvement socially or culturally with noticeable outcomes. Now more than ever you can easily access, via live music or music media, whatever taste you want to explore from classic over-played hits to the most obscure avant garde curiosities on the bleeding edge of whatever. But somehow our experiences don’t cumulatively flourish into vibrant rainbows but instead into a gray haze of blandness. When asked what do we REALLY want to hear that will inspire, invigorate and move us forward we really can’t qualify an answer of any use. To compound the situation we now have more people on the planet meaning more people making music easily with the accessible enhancements of consumer technology; add global dramas of economic, environmental and violent natures to the mix; add the chaos and instant gratification of the internet; add the crumbling certainties of the music industry and capitalism with it; add finally plain cultural confusion in western identity and purpose – and you have a situation that pumps out music like never before that we collectively greet with a drawn out yawn. True silence becomes priceless.

How do people stop themselves from being cynical in such circumstances save from being sheltered in self absorbed naivety? Worse still, how does a composer move forward with their own urges in the face of everything? Are you part of the solution or part of the problem? It’s hard to know and objectivity in this situation is quite slippery. Personally I press on because I’ve got no choice, the music has decided for me to express it – but that doesn’t prevent me from pumping out albums worth of bland stuff with only hints of personalized character, causing more yawns. I used to think ‘soul’ would win people over, but is there such thing as too much ‘soul’? There is no proper answer to that question. Any possible absolute negativity negates the possibility for unexpected surprises in music, which underground sources produce occasionally above the dilution. Such gems are rare, but I guess they are to be treasured and understood none the less. That point emphasizes that music isn’t about results, it’s about a journey of consciousness: for both composer and listener. And it is far more subtle than we think it is, far more humble and private.

A wine connoisseur doesn’t get excited over any old vintage: they have to look far, wide and deep for that special experience. So it is for music. And thus it validates all stations of music, from shallow corporate pop to the weirdest most buried oddities – they all have their place for the journey of the respective composers and respective audiences. Those of us suffering from ‘saturation sickness’ could find comfort in this realization – that their own methods for finding those gems is a different challenge than one on the easy avenues of mass culture and mass consumerism. Don’t stand in the surf and be pummeled by the onslaught of the waves: go to shallows and look closely at the shells and stones. The energy you save doing this allows you to better spend you time enjoying things and thus better dealing with the dramas of the world.

A fair few musical and cultural realisations have been made of late, but I’ll write about them specially later if appropriate.

In gear-related news I have finally bit the bullet and committed to a new set of mixing monitors: A new pair of Yamaha HS80Ms! Unfortunately due to swimming fun over the summer break my ears became all blocked up – so I’ve yet to really enjoy and understand the new speakers. From what I can tell it’s a clear improvement on my old custom system, and I’ve set things up so I can quickly A-B old and new to continue understanding the difference to learn the new sound. Ears shall improve soon so I will report back on what I’m hearing, as well as posting some photos.

Edit: Apparently this blog is breaking on IE7 – I’ll try to get that fixed up soon…

May 2009 be a creative time for you all, in spite of all mounting insanity around you.

[A]rtists who create Avant-Pop art are the Children of Mass Media (even more than being the children of their parents who have much less influence over them).

It also touches on the globalized and networked nature of being a creative participant, rather than having traditional delineation of ‘producer’ and ‘consumer’:

The emerging wave of Avant-Pop artists now arriving on the scene find themselves caught in this struggle to rapidly transform our sick, commodity-infested workaday culture into a more sensual, trippy, exotic and networked Avant-Pop experience. One way to achieve this would be by creating and expanding niche communities. Niche communities, many of which already exist through the zine scene, will become, by virtue of the convergent electronic environments, virtual communities. By actively engaging themselves in the continuous exchange and proliferation of collectively-generated electronic publications, individually- designed creative works, manifestos, live on-line readings, multi- media interactive hypertexts, conferences, etc., Avant-Pop artists and the alternative networks they are part of will eat away at the conventional relics of a bygone era where the individual artist- author creates their beautifully-crafted, original works of art to be consumed primarily by the elitist art-world and their business- cronies who pass judgement on what is appropriate and what is not.

It’s an interesting read. You can find it here. More here.

The Abolition of Work by Bob Black

The main point is a great one: that this entire mess of stress and chaos that we call our ‘society’ is indeed one of a choice. We have collectively chosen to work ourselves into stupidity and have also invented a structure of belief that this is the right thing to do! As a person who is creative and loves to play around with music this makes complete sense to me: that life could be so much better. I don’t see change possible on a large scale while ever we collectively hold onto our self imposed misery.

The essay is long, but worth a read. His other points on the website are interesting, but I don’t agree with a lot of it (which has become culturally dated and is negative). Share the point though: why are all of us agreeing to this needless slavery?

On a side note: this blog appears to be having loading troubles. Please bear with me while I try to get to the bottom of it…

Consider these points:

- You want to make music but you quickly find you really don’t have what it takes. So you go learn by reading up on theory or learning an instrument – and if you take that seriously at all it takes years to anywhere useful. Often you do this against the wishes of your family or community.
- After years of noodling with many things you might come across one or two special musical ideas that make you ‘yeah! I want to share this with the world!’ only to find there is this thing you haven’t addressed called ‘mixing’ and ‘sonic character and texture’ you clearly haven’t got a bleeding idea about. So you go learn about that and be daunted by the stupid amount of choices you have out there and the absolute quagmire of misinformation about what is regarded as quality.
- You spend a heap of money on hardware that you’ll never re-coup on. Most of it you have no idea how to use so you try to be better than everyone else by investing years into learning how to use it all creatively. Repeat this step every 3 years.
- You find software you like but it dies or it’s just not good enough. Same goes for versions of operating systems. Meanwhile all the prophets on the internet flame you constantly because your choice is wrong and theirs is right.
- No matter how well you mix your precious songs they still don’t ever sounds as good as commercial big name ones, so you spend a little while tearing your hair out over that until you realise the secret word is MASTERING. And you have no clue about it. You either spend a decade or two trying to learn all about it so you can do it yourself, or realizing that you’ve got to spend large amounts of money you cannot afford to have some professional do it for you so you end up with a result you’re probably not happy with anyway.
- You realise that working in digital is never going to be as good as working in analogue, but you keep a stiff lip because you can’t afford real analogue gear and it frankly scares you.
- In the meantime you realise that those precious songs you made aren’t so precious and they sound like poorly hacked out versions of some fad that’s already passed out of fashion. Instead of ‘giving up’ you take it upon yourself to develop something more ‘special’ and ‘timeless’ of course with no support from anyone because it’s taboo to actually discuss what makes good song writing and all your peers worried about beatslicers or how to make drums sound more aggressive. Anyway, you spend a decade or a few decades chipping away at this enormous task that you’re probably not capable of, while at the same time trying to hold down a job and feed yourself. You find you start talking a lot of rubbish no one understands.
- Just maybe you pull off a whole album of gold; music that you think is just plain amazing and would change the world. What the hell to do?!? You try courting some small ‘record labels’ to get your self released but lo and behold they say you won’t get any money for it, the release will be so delayed it’s stupidly out of date, and that your album will reach probably a handful of people anyway. Why? No one buys music anymore apparently. Everyone is downloading it for free -or- they’re so sick of the infinite amount of choices between this colour of shit versus that colour of shit so why would they bother to take a chance on you?
- You then think there must be some other way! So you get in on this craze of joining a ‘internet social network’ where you make ‘friends’ who aren’t really your friends and everyone is DESPERATELY sharing pure inanity just to seek base-level personal validation. Sure, you get a few bits of kudos here and there were people say ‘hey nice song, but it sounds like MUD’, but that doesn’t seem to do.
- So why not just give away all your music for free?!? Hell, those legends in the tracking demo scene days used to do it all the time so why not you? Who wants money for music anyway? What are you crazy? So you make up some website which you think is cool but isn’t and offer all your precious music for free. You might have a little bit of savy or investment behind you as you’ve setup a nice little online shop where you can buy the high quality FLAC versions of your song or buy a physical pressing of your CD, artwork and all. All of this you pay for out of your own pocket. You sell a few token copies, and some people have sympathy for you. Go to bed, wake up next day go back to being a wage slave.
- Maybe while all this is happening you’ve started a live band and you’re doing gigs here and there. This may even be earning you a buck or two, but it’s nothing you can live off. Then you’re dealing with drunks, hecklers, not selling many CDs, bad venues, noise, smoke, PA disasters, stealing, broken gear, and all other manner of curiosities that you encounter with life on the road. Wake up in the morning: wonder what you’re doing.
- By now you’re completely baffled and thinking the whole situation is rather Spinal Tap. Nevertheless you’re bored at work and decide to pop onto an internet forum or an internet chat channel to talk about your woes and hopefully talk about the dream of writing music again that has some class and magic to it. So on you hop only to find that some loud boyish users are going on and on about ‘how this is gay and that is gay’ and anything else that’s generally base and vulgar. So you pipe up with your opinions and SLAM you’re made to look as unreasonable a possible for even thinking about wanting to make a nice song – you try to fight back but before you know it some person has posted a YouTube link about people having sex in animal suits and the conversation moves on. Later on you’re talking to some defeatist who does ‘music for fun’ and thinks you should too. Fun? What’s fun?

On days like these you could just give up. But something keeps you going, something keeps you coming back to your music. You keep creating, but why?

- You’re clearly stupid.
- You don’t have a choice because for some reason this creativity just doesn’t turn off. It’s something you’re born with and if you suppress it you’ll go stark raving mad.
- You’re operating under some missionary delusion that your music has a good message and that once it interfaces with the social world it will be a contributing factor to positive social change. All those hours you’ve spent draining power from the grid to work on your creations is worth it because the music will do the right thing. All those barrels of oil to make the CD plastic and ink, all those trees cut and pulped so that you’ve got nice looking artwork …need I go on?
- Someone important, influential or special in your life keeps encouraging you to do this because they’re unhappy with their life but want you to fulfill their dreams for you.
- You think it’s an apt joke that you do something no one really wants you to do in the face of the global military industrial complex, while people are needlessly slaughtering animals out of cultural stupidity, and the decadent elite are busy gobbling up all the land and raising the price of it so you can never enjoy any of it. Sure, it’s easy to write a killer groove or a or an uplifting movement while the Earth dies. Give me a break: let’s hop on ebay and buy some shit from China that we don’t need, or go watch the latest version of Batman and blog about it. REASONABLE.
- You’re a masochist, and like suffering. Hell, suffering’s pretty cool at them moment, right?
- Why not?
- Maybe something bigger than you that you can’t understand needs you to do this. It’s your job. It may seem absurd and pointless, but there also is no choice. It’s part of a larger hidden mechanism. The little gifts that you create and bring into the world work in far subtler ways than you can ever imagine – their importance is deep and long, almost always invisible.

Discuss.

More here.

Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.

We reflect on their past mistreatment.

We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations – this blemished chapter in our national history.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page. A new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.

For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.

A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.

A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.

A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.

A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.

A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia

It’s not my place to discuss the significance of this here. But, it does tie in nicely with my current fascination with Midnight Oil and their ‘Diesel and Dust’ period. In particular, The Dead Heart:

We dont serve your country
Dont serve your king
Know your custom dont speak your tongue
White man came took everyone

We dont serve your country
Dont serve your king
White man listen to the songs we sing
White man came took everything

We carry in our hearts the true country
And that cannot be stolen
We follow in the steps of our ancestry
And that cannot be broken

We dont need protection
Dont need your land
Keep your promise on where we stand
We will listen well understand

Mining companies, pastoral companies
Uranium companies
Collected companies
Got more right than people
Got more say than people

Forty thousand years can make a difference to the state of things
The dead heart lives here