Casio CZ/ VZ/ FZ - Pro Series

--- In CZsynth@yahoogroups.com, zebra <ezra.buchla@...> wrote:
>
> > What middle class? Who are you talking about specifically? There
> 
> i'm talking bout pre-internet indie bands and labels. if you listen 
to
> punk rock, pick any punk band ever. i don't know... sonic youth?
> 

Great example!  Sonic Youth's early output was a cacophonous mess, 
along the lines of early Boyd Rice.  Then they started getting 
popular when they started recording pop songs (such as Sugarcane).  
Those pop songs are what made Sonic Youth a household name, and 
Pavement rips off nothing but their pop songs.  You wouldn't see 
Pavement trying to rip-off the sound of Sonic Youth's early 
recordings!

So, like I said, crap sinks, cream rises.  We all like to think we're 
not making crap, but maybe we've still got a ways to go before we're 
really ready for the big leagues.  What ever happened to patience?  
(Ok, I admit it's a little silly for me, at 37 years old, to still be 
waiting for my big break, but I'll be the first to admit that my 
first five years of output was embarassingly bad and technically 
incompetant).  But if it were really important to me to make money in 
the music industry, I could always become producer-svengali to some 
boy-band, and so could the rest of you.  If that's not what you want, 
then focus on what you DO want.  And don't wait for someone to make 
things happen for you, because if you do that, someday you will wind 
up 37 years old without ever getting anywhere like me.  I only wish I 
had realized this 15 years ago; realized that instead of goofing off 
or looking for shortcuts, I should work hard on my craft, until it is 
so good that people are busting down my door to get it.  Ever seen 
the movie Groundhog Day?  Bill Murray lives the same day over and 
over again, so he knows what the woman he's trying to pick up is 
going to say, so he tries to scam her this way, and it doesn't work, 
he always ends up coming off as a jerk.  He finally gives up, decides 
to take piano lessons, rescue the various people he sees every day 
getting in the same accidents, and then when the woman of his desires 
sees what an impressive guy he's made himself into, she winds up 
chasing him.  


> >> but i haven't made any money off
> >> music, and i don't expect to. (when people in my band start 
talking
> >> about licensing deals at practice, i know it's my time to 
quit...)
> >
> > Ah, ok, so you deliberately sabotage your own career on a regular
> > basis. Well hey, we all know there is a greater proportion of the
> > insane among musicians than in the general population.
> 
> hm, i thought you weren't here to insult me. ;)

I'm not, but here you are complaining about a lack of (sustained) 
success and then you state that you deliberately leave whenever any 
talk of the nuts & bolts of pursuing success comes up.  If that only 
seems bizarre to me, and not you, then I think you're probably 
insane, regardless of whether that observation feels insulting to you.

> 
> it happens that i personally have never thought that my records 
could
> make money on their own, and i'm just not interested in pursuing a
> full-time music career since it would mean having to think bout a 
lot
> of weird stuff that has nothing to do with making records. i'm much
> happier as a part time musician with a well-paying day job. i think 
a
> lot of people are reaching that conclusion, for better or worse.

Yeah fine, I'm not saying you have to be a business man to be 
successful, as I said, my advice would be to continue to hone your 
craft until the world simply can't live without it. That way you can 
attract the best business men to work the business side for you.  But 
the mere concept of business is not kryptonite.  Your attitude, taken 
to the extreme, reminds me of people who claim that they don't want 
to learn how to read musical notation because they think that doing 
so will confine them to stifling 'rules' and hinder 
their 'creativity', when in fact if they are creative individuals in 
the first place, then learning more of their craft could only improve 
their output.