A few questions come up at this stage for me. And these are deep and profound questions that I seriously need to mull over for a time:
What is this blog supposed to be?
What exactly is it supposed to do for me?
What is it about?
Is it for anyone specific?
How about everyone?
Who, if anyone, will read it?
What do they want to read?
Do I care?
Should I care?
I realize that these questions are broad and general, and I think instead of trying to tackle all of them at once, I'd rather treat this space with a much more specific tone if I'm able to achieve anything at all, let alone self-satisfaction (of course, the ultimate prize). Life projects have to be a focused affair. You must choose and attack with both precision and persistence. I think basically this project really is just a challenge for me to try and focus my thoughts about what I'm hearing and seeing around me every day, and to try and use these sensations to place myself within this temporal-musical framework somehow. Along these lines, I think that it is also a lot about overcoming my fears of this musical world we live in - staring at culture face to face, and really letting myself be honest about what I think.
Music Journalism is a daunting affair for me at this stage in my life. I used to have no problem sitting down to my laptop with headphones on, ready to commit to type what I was hearing and feeling. Listening to new things almost every day during the second half of my high school years, I basically just had to tell people what I was hearing. It frustrated me so much that bands like the Sea & Cake were likely to spend the rest of their careers unnoticed by my generation, or even bands like Modest Mouse (this of course has proven otherwise with time, an interesting development I would, for example, like to explore in further detail through channels like this blogspot). So perhaps that was a mistake all along - a little selfish to think I was somehow the keeper and gaurdian of "good art" within my community and demographic, and perhaps I should learn from this: I am not the deliverer of good art to the masses, and quite frankly, the masses probably give a fuck about what I think is good art anyway. I will never be able to make the music be ABOUT the culture it sits in... the music does that on its own really. Therefore, I think that this music journal I'm setting out to write needs to be about me first. But then why post it on the web? Why let everyone see what I think? Let's be honest here - Craw-not-the-lord really doesn't know shit about music in the long run...
Harsh, I know. Not 100% true, I know as well. But the musical spectrum itself has gotten so completely, ridiculously huge and out of hand, I think it's fair and reasonable to be a little overwhelmed. If you want to be a journalist on a specific subject, I feel there is somewhat of an expectation that a certain history should be known by the writer, in this case "blogger" -- perhaps not only known, but committed to an absolute encyclopedic-memory as well. And this is the kind of knowledge I have exposed myself to in music journalism, particularly the indie-mag giant known as Pitchforkmedia.com.
But Crawford: Get real. That's not you. You will never be as smart as everyone. You'll never hear every record recommended by every website or friend. You'll never become an expert on every genre or remember every year every great record came out. It is simply impossible. I want to come out of the gate not knowing everything, but rather learning everything. Thus, I think it's time to go back to an original goal I mentioned earlier, and is now becoming more clear and making more sense to me:
Try to place myself in a temporal-musical context
I think this is something concrete and specific I can really use to help guide me through an otherwise scary sort of process. I have to realize that every time I hear something new, or every next time I hear the same thing, I am always learning more about not only what I am hearing, but where I come from because of it. This is the kind of statement that can really confuse people, but basically my idea is that everything we hear is built off of what was heard in the past. And that, then, also becomes a part of my history as the listener of the new music, and in turns, also contributes the overall history of the music itself. It gets even crazier when I think about what that means in terms of the actual music I make and play with, say, my own rock and roll band - but I think this is a subject I can possibly explore later. For now, my introduction grows long and weary, so I think it may be time to jump to the point:
I want to treat this as both an essay and journal format. I want to bring a scholarly approach and critical ethic to the table with what I'm going to be covering here wherever possible - but I want to turn this critical eye onto myself and try to let myself fall where it may as a result of what I experience. I also want to use this as a record of my experiences, hence the "journal-istic" tendencies of the nature of the "blog" itself. I want to report on this as these events occur here in a public forum, where others might provide me with positive feedback and/or provide me with further research and future topics of discussion.
Mostly though, I miss the days of sitting in a coffee shop with a pair of headphones plugged into my Discman, and really digging some great albums, and trying to pull them apart and piece them back together in non-fictive prose. It's a fun thing to do, and I love doing it. Granted, this all is making music a more subjective experience, but hell... that's what it is to me, at least at this point in my life. I don't think we can discount what we bring to the musical table - whether we are creating the music, just listening to it, or writing about it, we all contribute to the shape of its very history. The music is definitely shaping me, and it should in turn shape my thoughts here within the confines of this journal-esque form of historical writing - I want to accept and embrace the fact that I am affecting it to, once and for all. No more fear: I am the music, and it is me.
And as I wrap up my first-blog-ever... it becomes harder than ever to press the "publish post" button below. Don't I want to format my blog a little more first? Shouldn't there be a hyper-link in there? I didn't even mention any of my favorite bands yet, will that be OK?
Shut up. Seriously.
FAVORITE RECORD EVER... RIGHT NOW:
Mt. Eerie w/ Julie Doiron & Fred Squire: Lost Widsom
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