FRYING PAN/SP ALBUM UPDATE
In documenting our progress, or not, I am often remiss to talk about whatever plagues me; because invariably someone comes up on the street and asks: "Are you alright?"
My answer to you is: acknowledging difficulty in a task is healthy. What isn't is being easily defeated by it. 'It' being: a challenge, a fear, a reservation. And trust me, as it pertains to any record process, I have plenty.
With OCEANIA it was: 'Can this group of people (which includes myself) make a record befitting the SP name?'
On that the jury is still out but overall the response was favorable. On MTAE I asked myself a smilier question, albeit from a slightly different angle: 'Can we (Jeff and I) make a record that would revitalize this zeppelin?' (Which one might argue was slowly sinking in the aggregate, although business indicators said the opposite).
Answer: we feel we have, but the rest of the world gets to ultimately make that decision; and hence, the madness of the journey.
So what's the question I ask myself now? How about: 'Why are you doing this?', or 'Why do you still do this?' Reporters ask too, and I don't have a good answer. The best I gave recently: 'I like to learn.' And apparently it is through adversity that I learn best.
So, by setting aside 5 numbers, of which 2 I am dead certain belong on DAY FOR NIGHT, that means I've got to find solutions for 3 and write 4 more, or find illumination that would make me see more in the other dozens I have laying about; where there is much good, but scant great.
Next question: 'What makes great, and who decides?'
Great in the modern definition means instantaneous; as in right now; as in tomorrow means nothing and in fact, one can assume disinterest tomorrow. Hence the move towards pornography in the promotion of music. Because if salacious works, that only goes one direction (and I a'int talking about my niece's favorite band, although she's partial to 5 Seconds of Summer too). That, as you know, is not the business we're in, but what business are we in? Alternative-rock (a beautiful fraud), Rock (never dies), SP-music (define that please), and so on.
If I had to choose I'd say we're in the business of my sanity, and Jeff's realization. With Jeff having turned the corner on his artistry, and hence his contribution, and I perhaps recognizing, just now, that I've been crazy all along. Not 'crazy like a fox' crazy, but disabled crazy; as in: not fully functional.
Because a sociopath would compartmentalize and continue, and a narcissist would just marshall whatever forces he needs to get it done. but a crazy person tries the same thing and expects a different result. And that maybe explains my brief moment of sanity, when on ADORE I did try something different and failed mightily (although it is certainly a victory now).
Too much psycho-babble? Perhaps, but I also sense a fatigue everywhere. With how things 'are' particularly, and let's face it, these are just words and the occasional picture or two. And once you've heard my general pathos it doesn't get much deeper than: 'we had a bad day', 'we had a good day', 'I'm not sure what today was?' And guaranteed, someone will approach me tomorrow and ask: 'Are you okay?'
William is OK. And you are OK. In fact, I know you're great. And I'm great too. God is great, and that's how we do that math.
So, work: SOLARA was the hammer, and I was the sickle. And leaping into the deep waters of what is a no-brainer, gimme of a grunge song we cast off it's shell and went for the sun-worshipper who, in standing beneath the sun, feels awe, or boredom, or both; his thirst for travel unbound, he'd like to see the stars or, better yet, know them. Not sure if I'll get what I'm looking for here, or just have to write a new one, but the riff's minor to major universal magnetism is worth mining out.
Only a million and One miles to go…
W.P.C.
