Fending off the Asterisks
Seeing the forest of accomplishment through the logistics brambles has lately been a challenge, but opening up the shipping box to find neat rows of pristine new albums remains one of a musician's little thrills. To make a beautiful thing, to put it out into the world and spread around the positive energy, it used to be enough. Nerved out and chomping at the bit to know what folks will think of our new puppy, which has always been the create/feedback pattern but now is amplified by the endless mirror of social media. After sending out 130 promo emails to music blogs this morning with much more work to do, it seemed wise to turn away from the screens, from days of spreadsheets and interfaces and video-making and two months of bronchitis to sit with an acoustic guitar and get my wintery Nick Drake vibe on. It's a strange and perhaps privileged thing to be in a rock band and make and release and promote records at a time when institutions that defend the vulnerable are being dismantled wholesale. Congresspersons are called, good causes donated to, protests attended, and certainly votes will be cast in November, but the situation is dire and tiring and admittedly there have been long periods where burrowing into the details and logistics of music-life has been a relief, if not a compulsion. Putting out albums lately somehow feels like spitting into a giant storm. Like it's the wrong skill set. Still wrestling with how it all integrates, if it does at all.