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Here’s an old essay that still hits strong today:

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…

Some days you just want to throw your hands in the air and wonder why you even bother.

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.

On behalf of the Australian Parliament Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said sorry for the past injustices against the Stolen Generation and the Aboriginal people of Australia. You can watch the entire speech here. A little excerpt:

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

Hello everyone and welcome to 2008. Much going on to be written about, but I might as well start off with a little project I’ve been involved with. Behold:

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.

Some recent discussion with fellow artists has prompted the following reflection. This is not the first time I have written on the matter (here).

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.