Do you ever feel like you have a lot on your mind but you can’t put any of it into words? I’ve been feeling a bit like that lately. Here are a few thoughts and questions from the mess of my mind right now though.
No one does less to promote themselves than me. It’s kinda stupid but it is what it is. So my one weak-ass attempt now will be to say that there are still some copies of Keep Moving available. Troop over to the Handsmade website and get yours while the getting is still good. I’ve been thinking about the path forward lately and I may scale back on doing physical releases or maybe even back off the practice altogether - at least for a while. I only do small runs of things these days so the copies of things that are out there are precious (if I may).
Next: Lately I’ve been finding that hip hop fans and critics use ‘lyrical-miracle rapper’ as sort of a derogatory term. I heard this in a review of a record by an artist I consider a peer just earlier today. What is a lyrical-miracle rapper? Maybe I’m missing something but is it a way to describe a purely technical rapper? If so, are we talking about rappers like Percee P? Edan? Kool G Rap? Rakim? Those are some of my favorite rappers of all time and I want to hear more rapping like that always. I have some pretty harsh takes on this topic, actually. I’ll keep them to myself. But I really hope that technical rapping hasn’t somehow become a bad thing. I want to hear folks rapping their damn ass off. Don’t get me wrong - I want to hear more than just technicality. There’s also plenty of stuff I DON’T want to hear at all. But I digress.
Now: Here’s a thing with an old acquaintance that makes me happy:
Plus: Did I ever tell you I once recorded a song with Neneh Cherry? Maybe I’ll get into that story here soon.
Furthermore: It occurred to me the other day that I haven’t really written about Bike For Three! here yet. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to talk about that. Not in a real way. There’s lots of stuff like that. I love those albums though. I think Joëlle and I brought good work out of one another. We still check in with each other. She’s an awesome person.
Unrelated: For many years, I said that the Dirtbike albums were my favorite things I ever did. I don’t feel that way now and I may have spoken a bit harshly about them here. I revisited them recently (after the post back in May) and although there are things that bother me and things that make me cringe a little, my feelings have softened again. Those are pretty special recordings. I was unexpectedly struck by Dirtbike 4. There’s a song inspired by the story of the Lykov family that I think is quite good. And I still love the story of the kid from Toronto named Elton McDonald who hung out under the ground in a giant hole/tunnel that he dug. Did I ever mention that he heard the song I made about him? I haven’t met him but I heard he was pretty psyched.
After that post about the Dirtbike albums, I got to thinking about how that album reached people and have wondered if that would even be possible anymore. Like, do albums ever ‘leak’ these days? Do people still use file-sharing sites? Is Limewire still going?
And by the way, thanks so much to everyone who purchased Dirtbike stuff on Bandcamp when I had my little sale-thing. That went really well. I was moved.
Side note: There’s not a lot I miss about my touring days but looking back, I was lucky enough to play some pretty cool events. The 2006 Triptych festival in Scotland stands out in my memory. Check this friggin’ lineup out:
https://drownedinsound.com/news/666947-triptych-line-up-announced
What else? Do y’all know about ‘The Canada Project’? It’s this album-thing that I recorded with Sixtoo, Sage Francis and Adeem over 25 years ago. Sixtoo released it on his “Songs I Hate” album. I bring this up because I re-connected with Adeem recently. He’s making music under the name Adam And The Flood these days. He recently released an album called Chasing Gods which heavily features my favorite DJ in the world, D-Styles. The album is quite excellent and is definitely worth checking out. You won’t have trouble finding it.
Hark: Would you indulge me a few words about Spotify, real quick? I don’t love the platform but I’ve uploaded my music to it due to sheer demand. That’s really the only reason. I just want to say that I’m less psyched about it now than ever after learning recently that the CEO of the company has taken money made from the work of artists and invested it in a company that makes weapons of war. It may make me sound like an incurable Gen-Xer to say this but that doesn’t sit well with me at all. Pulling my music down would feel like I’m punishing you and you have nothing to do with how Mr. CEO spends his money. But I don’t like it.
Bonus: A few years ago, I was contacted by someone saying that the ‘creatives’ at the TV show Top Chef wanted to use my song about food (“food puts me in a good mood and keeps me going…”) in commercials to promote their upcoming season. I thought that sounded kinda fun and like a nice pay day potentially, so I said, “let’s talk”. As discussions proceeded, the idea evolved. They asked me to write a new, original song that included details about the show. Interesting challenge. Terms were negotiated and I went to work. I came up with something we were all happy with. I may share the song here someday. At this point, I’ll jump ahead a bit and make a long story short but after everyone on the show said they were happy and the promo campaign was weeks away from launching, all the creative stuff was sent up the chain of command to the network brass for final approval. And then the brass said, “we can’t have a white guy rapping” and the whole thing was killed. The end.
Hope y’all are good.
Until the next.