I am a screaming statwhore and so I am always checking exactly how much data is being sucked out of this website. It gives me a satisfying feeling that I am shoving over 100Gb of music down the open mouths of the unwary Internet traveller looking for free MP3 files. Though I must admit I became rather alarmed today when I noticed that yesterday I had racked up over 70Gb of traffic in one day. One day…70Gb of data whooshing from here to who knows where. That scared me. Scared me lots…
I mean that’s probably the daily rate of a hardcore porn site or something? So I checke and it turned out that for some unknown reason one of my older songs had racked an unbelievable 27000+ access. The song is “Jolly Good Mood Music” and gawd knows why it is proving to be so popular? It was recorded 10 years ago when I was still struggling with the mystical art of sound recording and is a bit shite. Oh well, who can explain it?
Meanwhile, I managed to fix the wobbly audio on my “Seville” video and I’ve uploaded a High-Def version so you can see every spot and pock-mark on my corpulant, sweaty, saggy sad old face. Look at that face…it’s as if Droppy the Dog has mated with a badly stuffed cushion. Poor bastard. Look at those blood-shot, tired eyes…what must his baby daughter think when she sees such a vision at the side of her cot?
Well she just laughs at me, because I am officially the funniest thing in her world. And that suits me fine…
By the way, you can download the Hi-Def video from here
Category: Diary
Mr Oz posted this comment on an entry last week about feeling insecure about music creation. Mr Oz is the pseudonym of long-ago recording buddy and chat chum, Andrew Osborne. My replies to his comments are italised.
Mr Oz wrote:
a) Told you so (that’s it’s a difficult thing to define/justify/satisfy oneself at).
b) I now risk hijacking your Blog.
Well you aren’t hijacking and it isn’t that difficult. The problem with some of us humans, the creative ones, the ones that think too much is just that. We think too much. A lot of the creative process should be thrown open to instinct and the gut, rather than the brain. Sometimes the brain just gets in the way. It’s just when someone asks you questions about something you never really think about, you tend to start over-analysing. I’m over it now.
For me:
…because the physical act of playing an instrument is intrinsically enjoyable. I’d argue it’s A Man Thing, involving “manual” labour and tools;
This is true. Playing the electric guitar is an incredibly macho thing to do. It really is an extension of the penis; from the way the guitar is slung low, to the “look at me” expression and the “I can play this fast” bravado. I don’t really class myself as a man though – I know it sounds weird but to call yourself a “man” often pigeonholes you into the beery leery, Clarkson, forever young Peter Pan never growing-up, facile face of masculinity. I believe that there’s more to men than that – we’ve just not been allowed to express it yet. Get in touch with your feminine side, dude. Yer missus won’t mind you trying on her undies, honest!
…because as I get older I realise just how mediocre I am at most things, and would like to prove to myself/others that I’m superior at one thing at least;
Ahhh, superiority/inferiority complex. Never really suffered from that. I know I am pretty crappy at the guitar, but I have an insatiable drive to create, so that makes up for any lack of dexterity or “talent” – this is often derision from other guitarists. The thing about YouTube is very often I’ll get one comment that is intended to wound me. Such a comment is this (verbatim): “You’ve got a lot of expensive equipment there. Shame you are so shit”. That always makes me giggle as it reveals a lot about the poster than it does about the player. Maybe men really are that facile? But ask yourself Mr OZ, is this a good reason to play?
…because I strive to express myself (or to paraphrase Mr Oldfield, I want to create a musical world I’d want to live in);
Self-expression is a good motivation, but you have to have something to say or a vision or an aim. A marksman without an aim will just shoot into the air.
…altho it rarely happens, I want to perform, or be ready to perform, because I want to feel I’m an artist, a star, part of something;
I see. I think you should be prepared to stand alone first, to say: “This is me. This is who I am”. A lot of people hide behind bands or excuses and never discover that inner voice. Look for yourself, dude.
…because despite finding that I can’t achieve the above, I can’t help myself.
The thing that has always bugged me about you is that you have oodles of potential but you just don’t know how to unlock it. I’ve tried to guide you and give you a few pointers, but unless you make the leap on your own, you are in a self-fulfilling circle of doubt. A lot of musicians concentrate on performing other people’s music. Sit down and compose yourself. It could be the simplest of tunes, but compose for you. If you have to compose for someone else, compose a nursery rhyme for your children or a silly song for them. Use your talent to make something, rather than skirting around the issue.
Probably only the last point is true. When you started your newsagenting, it sounded like you weren’t going to get the opportunity or energy to produce anything, but you have – hinting that the same is true for you. You are genetically disposed to want to make music. Failing to do it to your own standards is not a good enough reason not to strive to get there.
It is the creative process. I like doing silly stuff: whether it is writing stories no-one will ever read or recording music that no-one will buy, you have to do it to entertain yourself. Record the album that you want to hear, rather than the one you think your friends want to hear. Being creative is very selfish, very arrogant and very conceited. All those facets of your character need to be developed.
AND FWIW, my contribution to the Load gear is some of my best and most interesting playing, and the finished product of high quality that I’m proud to pass on to friends. And I always thought my musical paranoia was greater than yours. Go figure.
LOAD was a very interesting project for me, which I found very useful. I listened to it not that long ago and was surprised by some of the ideas floating about in there. The good thing about working with someone else is you will get dragged in directions you don’t necessarily want to go and so you have to learn to react in a different way. If I knew you were up to it and had the conviction I would propose LOAD 2.
Do 3rd parties ever read comments?
Yes.
Verity searches the horizon for any duck-related activity…
Look a duck and a goose, with a bench.
Booze is the answer!
It’s been over a week since I did that radio interview about my music and although I don’t think it has been broadcast yet (in fact, I have no idea when it will be broadcast), my mind keeps going back to it and mulling over the conversation. I don’t really go much for self-analysis when it comes to my creative endeavours. To coin the trainer advert, I just do it. But for the first time ever, I’ve suddenly got a little insecure about this musical hobby of mine. Why am I doing this? Why bother? Listening back it is so obvious that I am no musician by any stretch of the imagination. If I look at it logically, it makes no sense. So why do it?
Then something the interviewer said about playing my music live keep coming back. I’d love to, really, but my lack of confidence in my abilities and the music means that this will never happen. As I said to the guy, I wouldn’t pay to listen to this, so why would anyone else? That comment struck home…it struck to the core of me and goes back to the question: why do I do this? I don’t know. It is bothering me and upsetting me in equal quantities – but isn’t living your life just wasting time until the final breath? Too fatalistic, Darren…brighten up.
On a lighter note, we took a few hours out to take Verity to see the ducks. (I am going to attach the pix I have uploaded to Flickr – so I guess these’ll appear as separate entries or something!)
At 37 years of age, it has suddenly been revealed to me that I’ve got gay hands. I don’t know what to do about it. I mean I feel perfectly straight, a pretty young thing in shorts and a crop top is still going to get blood racing to my manly parts, but I need to know what are the implications of having gay hands?
A single gay hand of mine…
If you haven’t guessed, I was unfortunate enough to watch BBC TV last night waste even more of my licence fee with The Making of Me – John Barrowman: Why am I Gay? I was intrigued because I’d seen the trailer and the test in the MRI scanner machine looked fascinating. Unfortunately, the show was a non-starter with no questions really answered. But the piece of evidence that rocked my world was the “gay hand” theory. Apparently, in the womb, you are subjected to all manner of hormones and if you are bombarded with the correct amount of male hormone testosterone, your ring finger grows longer than your index finger. This means that you are a straight male. Too little testorerone in the womb and your ring finger will be smaller than your index finger and you will be a screaming queen.
I looked at my hands. My ring finger is smaller than my index finger – I have gay hands. The urge to go see Mamma Mia! at the cinema didn’t suddenly wash over me. For Barrowman, the news was equally upsetting – as a gay man, he has straight hands. So you sit there and watch and here these experts prod and probe and test and theorise for them to come up with nothing.
Of course, when asking the question about human sexuality, the wisest person will already have the answer. “They just are” – that covers it. But what concerns me was the apparent concreteness of human sexuality that was presented by the programme.
“I am gay and that’s it.” says Barrowman, “I was born this way.”
The thing about human sexuality is that it is pretty fluid when you analyse it. Put enough heterosexual men in a confined space without any females, and it doesn’t take long before they start bumming each other while protesting that they are straight, etc. It all comes as part of the human need for intimacy. While I am not saying that you can’t be born gay, I think the picture isn’t that clear cut. Some are born gay, some are nurtured into it, some choose it as a lifestyle for that period of their life, etc. Also, in this programme, there was zero coverage of lesbianism and I would have found it interesting how the hormone and chromosomal theories would have stacked up when it comes to women who prefer to drink from the furry cup.
One thing that I did realise was that there are no clear answers when it comes to the infinite variety of humanity and sometimes I think we should stop looking for answers to questions that don’t need answering. Of course, the follow-up show should be: John Barrowman: The Making of Me – Why am I such an irritating showoff? I’d like to see the geneticists tackle that one.
Meanwhile, something very strange occured last night. I actually took part in a interview about my music for a radio show. OK – so it is not Radio 1 or the mass media, but it was an interesting experience being on the end of the questions when, as a journalist, I usually ask them. I am dreading hearing the interview. I probably sound like a complete prat. I know I started babbling at one point and I lost my train of thought. I find it hard to articulate via the oratory hole in the lower middle of my face, instead preferring the keyboard or music to get my ideas across. Oh well, I’ll post a link when the interview airs.