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

http://www.armidaleanimalshelter.blogspot.com

If you are a New England resident this is well worth checking out. Much of the community is reluctant to know about what has to be done to manage neglected animals. Most cases are due to carelessness, and some animals end up facing death-row as a result. Galloway Street has already seen two young ones saved from such a fate. You can help via adoption or spreading the word.

Money making and music making don’t equate to each other. The more we realise these are completely separate the better. I think there are many young people, like myself once, who get into all of this because they think that is how they can make money. You want money? Get into property. You want to make great art? These days there is nothing holding you back, so hop to it.

For people unable to make the separation between commerce and art these point have to be faced:

• 1. Your talent or unique perspective on culture is not economically viable.
• 2. If you need income then you need to skill/experience yourself in a “related area” to your creative interest, but not with music composition.
• 3. Don’t secretly hope you can turn this into your day job. You can’t. You can only hope for a day job that is related in some degree to your core passion. This is not the fault of your passion, rather, it is the fault of an economic system chosen by an elite who are into corrupted self-oppression.
• 4. In the extremely unlikely event you derive commercial sustainability from music composition then it certainly will not make you happy, it will not bring personal fulfillment, it will not solve any deep personal issues you have with yourself or the people in your life.
• 5. The event of or even the whiff of commercial success will bring with it all the aspects of ‘endless grief’ associated with dealing with shallow, greedy, rude, narrow minded people that thrive in fostering commerce at the cost of art. At worst you will adopt these personality traits yourself, rendering you to a life of stress and wasting your goodness as an artist and as a decent human being.
• 6. Commercially successful artists, due to the current economic model, make sub-par art.

What to do then after the above is acknowledged? This is my main point: people should be doing this with the core intention to produce the best art possible. The ‘best art’ is certainly debatable in definition, but nevertheless can be taken as a culturally separate distinction to commerce. Because of the long history during the 20th Century of commerce and music being so intertwined people will find it difficult to lock onto the essential separation. But once it is done, then we can collectively get on with the task of making the most amazing music possible, fostering a culture of soul and exploration.

Then, in the meantime while we are working on our craft, we can have a sideline discussion about ‘how does one earn a living?’. And perhaps an even more important related discussion: ‘how do we collectively establish an activist culture that works to challenge the systematic insanity of our society and suggest and implement a healthier alternative?’. That’s what I’d like to work on. And I think good that’s excellent soil for great music to flower out of.

It’s hard to counter the natural thinking of the ’starving artist’ mentality, or the cynical thought of ‘we are in an art recession’. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve woke up in the morning huffing that I wish I could write songs all day every day. This selfishness is unearned, and inefficient. Go back and read Point 2 and Point 3 if this is not evident. Furthermore I’d argue that it is an important social responsibility to ‘be yourself within the artistic act’ and make it without dumbing it down for commercial purposes. This aides culture, and promotes cultural activism and consciousness development. Don’t mind for one second that your work is too obscure or too dense for people to access – sometimes the gift given take a long time to be properly received. We simply cannot waste time worrying about crap like money, property or career. Get income sorted first so you don’t have to think about it. Then, as best you can, make some art that will cause our jaw to drop.

Of course, all the above is an ideal to hold, and likely not to be practiced perfectly in the immediate future. However, this is the desired intension, and something we should all work towards for the sake of our own sanity.