i just got back from south by southwest, my first time going. i have lots of things to say about that...truly incredible experience, great parts, stupid parts, the works.
however right now i just want to rant about something.
it is not ok to ask people what they thought of your band unless you truly believe your friendship is close enough to invite the truth. what a goddamn awkward question. it is also obnoxious to consistently ask people if they are going to your show. a simple flier or invitation is fine. there is no need to beat a dead horse. if you work hard enough at making something beautiful and compelling, others will be hungry for it.
you can't create hunger. you also can't really be a hunger midwife.
one of the members of a band on my label that i love was talking last night about how ego-driven making art is, and how the assertion that you are doing it for others is even MORE ego driven. i can't parse out making art from being part of a community, perhaps because i want different, richer, more intriguing, more enraging kinds of interactions. i want things to pick apart and examine with the people around me. perhaps i am sort of like my mother in that when i start to feel a social dynamic or even art or music event is getting mundane, i wander off and around and probably look semi-crazy to the outsider for trying to find things that intrigue me - whether it is the girlfriend that got dragged to a boring show of white boys screaming by her boyfriend, or the bartender that plays ukelele hours a day on the side of a crap job, or the drugdealer in the street outside (this is of course where things become problematic - fascinating and intriguing people and things are often not necessarily the world's greatest ideas).
i giggle when i think of blunt, overt conversations my friend berdan and i have had in bars, saying things that people usually opt out of saying and seeing people in proximity look both drawn to and horrified by. therein lies the paradox. i think it breaks my heart more than anything when a person i considered paradoxical to their core does something absolutely predictable and by the book. what i crave are the kinds of people who you can know ten years and one day look at them with utter rage at their perspective and ferocious awe the next day.
maybe this is the danger in being a person who gets bored easily. however, i take my parents' words to heart that only boring people STAY bored...i have even used that over the years when questioned by them about any host of misadventures. "well, you both taught me never to STAY bored!" i remember being ten and my mom and dad both saying "katy, boring people are ones that get bored. don't get bored. figure out how to get away from boredom."
i think my parents were amazing. i kind of can't believe they exist sometimes.
their entire relationship is a paradox and my sister and i resulted. funny thing, procreation.
however right now i just want to rant about something.
it is not ok to ask people what they thought of your band unless you truly believe your friendship is close enough to invite the truth. what a goddamn awkward question. it is also obnoxious to consistently ask people if they are going to your show. a simple flier or invitation is fine. there is no need to beat a dead horse. if you work hard enough at making something beautiful and compelling, others will be hungry for it.
you can't create hunger. you also can't really be a hunger midwife.
one of the members of a band on my label that i love was talking last night about how ego-driven making art is, and how the assertion that you are doing it for others is even MORE ego driven. i can't parse out making art from being part of a community, perhaps because i want different, richer, more intriguing, more enraging kinds of interactions. i want things to pick apart and examine with the people around me. perhaps i am sort of like my mother in that when i start to feel a social dynamic or even art or music event is getting mundane, i wander off and around and probably look semi-crazy to the outsider for trying to find things that intrigue me - whether it is the girlfriend that got dragged to a boring show of white boys screaming by her boyfriend, or the bartender that plays ukelele hours a day on the side of a crap job, or the drugdealer in the street outside (this is of course where things become problematic - fascinating and intriguing people and things are often not necessarily the world's greatest ideas).
i giggle when i think of blunt, overt conversations my friend berdan and i have had in bars, saying things that people usually opt out of saying and seeing people in proximity look both drawn to and horrified by. therein lies the paradox. i think it breaks my heart more than anything when a person i considered paradoxical to their core does something absolutely predictable and by the book. what i crave are the kinds of people who you can know ten years and one day look at them with utter rage at their perspective and ferocious awe the next day.
maybe this is the danger in being a person who gets bored easily. however, i take my parents' words to heart that only boring people STAY bored...i have even used that over the years when questioned by them about any host of misadventures. "well, you both taught me never to STAY bored!" i remember being ten and my mom and dad both saying "katy, boring people are ones that get bored. don't get bored. figure out how to get away from boredom."
i think my parents were amazing. i kind of can't believe they exist sometimes.
their entire relationship is a paradox and my sister and i resulted. funny thing, procreation.
posted by Exotic Fever Records at 7:32 PM
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