As I may have said previously, my passion is music. The recent channel for that passion, for the last 18 months or so, as I may also have said previously, is macidol.com. Making music and posting it at macidol has been a great pleasure and an interesting experience. There is a community there in the forums that I feel pretty strongly attached to. All but one of the blog links on the right side of this page currently goes to a macidoler.
One aspect of this style of musicmaking is that it is somewhat masturbatory. But so is solo folksinging, which I've also done for years.
But let me tell ya a secret about me. I used to be in bands, and in those days couldn't imagine making music any other way.
I used to wanna play fast & loud. I still do in a way, but I have developed into an acoustic musician. That's what I like & what I do. I do not own an electric guitar. I would like to at some point, but for now, I have a small collection of cheap folk instruments and as my ethic as a recordist is decidedly lofi, I do pretty well with that. I will brag just enough to say that I think I have a couple of good tunes. But not many of them are in any way collaborative. Collaborating is hard. You have to give ego space up enough that you can let someone else's ideas in.
I am not the best at this. But I'm trying to get better at it. I've done it a few times and it sure isn't easy. Everybody brings expectations to these things. Me, too. But I try to have an open mind and can usually (not always) accomplish it. In my younger days, when bands were what I wanted to do with my passion, I could be pretty hardnosed. And that is something no musician deals with well. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I understand that people get an idea of what they want from a collaborative experience. In a band, that could change over time. A band can evolve its memberships' expectations, and to some extent their expectations can be met. Makes me wonder what it's like to be in a totally democratic band like R. E. M. that is still sharing all writing credits, and still almost all the same people since 1982 (they lost drummer Bill Berry in 1997).
I have managed a few things, though, and some of them are in my jamroom, some are in other's jamrooms (look for "Greyhound Run") and some ain't nowhere.
Nature of the game I guess.
4 comments:
You're a great collaborator, though. I remember when Steve K. and I enlisted you to play in our band. You, indeed, loved to play hard 'n' fast. I remember sensing that you were a little frustrated when Steve and I kept suggesting that you play "slinkier" bass. I also remember, though, that later you thanked us for encouraging you to play more melodically.
God, I was totally hopeless in that band. Most of the stuff we did is a major cringe-fest to me, entirely because of my own lackluster, clueless performances.
Oh, man: I am so sorry you feel that way about it. I think you are a great musician! I know you had frustrations about it, but I always thought that you had this unique perpsctive, and it made playing with you an absolute gas. I still love "Take A Chance On Me" and the whole freakin Niceties tape is so excellent.
I also like your stuff from San Diego that I've heard (half to two thirds of what you have posted.) I like all of it. You on a mac? Do you have garageband?It's so ridiculously easy to use even a monkey like me can do it.
You oughtta give it a try sometime...
You did a lovely job on Long Way To and Fro, Matt, reaching in to where the song begins and giving it more.
But I can understand exactly what you say. I'm terrible when I have a strong idea of what I want.
So sometimes we aim for what we hear in our heads and sometimes we are inspired by that which we didn't expect.
We should have a go at something else soon.
";~)
Stu
Hi Matt,
care for some opinions? I THOUGHT so, they are below in any case.
as usual, I'm last to discover all this cool stuff, the 'self sufficient iconclast' (dork) going by the moniker "pride of the universe" these days at open mikes all across North Seattle. I agree with both assessments: matt was great to colaborate with and Peter's perspective was an essential part of whatever engine made it go. That and three bucks will get you a latte.
PS B was a great experience for me because no one, however agreeable they were (not referring to myself most of the time) sat back to merely enjoy the ride. Everyone brought something of value to me: the Sparkepony point of view and voice, the griffen songwriting slant are awesome, and Dave was a fantasticly sensitive drummer unused to such broad sense of experimentation. This pressed all of our boundaries and one result for me is that the tapes still hold up well, as difficult as they can be to listen to and regardless of how unlikely we are to agree on qualities of individual tracks. The first PSB gig, the 'straight' one, makes me feel pretty good in the way pop i like does (most days, nothing is static anymore). Most of the others that I've listened to have stuff that is harder to understand but contained higher peaks and lower valleys; but years behind tape decks tell me that it was a good effort and yeah, I could have done better. If we had one thing in common it was that at times we each found things to beat ourselves up with. Luckily it wasn't terminal.
My thanks to you both.
Steve K
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