[atsonicpark]

Eh, a few random thoughts...
I've heard many bands say that records now exist only as advertisements for the live show -- perhaps it's always been that way, to certain people? I dunno. I always value hearing a good new album, though it seems like that time of "buying a CD that I'm not too sure about but forcing myself to listen to it a thousand times because I spent a bunch of money on it and then realizing 'HEY! THIS ACTUALLY HAS SOME COOL SONGS ON IT!" is gone. That was always a weird, cool feeling! I mean, honestly, ALL music has something good about it, if we're being specific, I mean even the worst song of all time probably has a catchy rhythm or something. I just love music. Maybe too much? Maybe that's why I'm kinda exhausted by it. More on that later. But it's kinda like a relationship... well, it is a relationship. But imagine a girlfriend you're really obsessed with, and you love everything about her. And maybe you gotta kinda set her free for a while... when she comes back, you'll appreciate her more. Or whatever. More on that later, yeah..

But, uh, I still download a lot, I guess -- I've always bought (and sold... and sometimes, buy again and then resold and then bought back for the third time) a lot, too. It just depends on my mood. I guess the one thing with downloading is I don't feel the "have to have it right now!" thing when I want to hear a band/album, because we have the conveniance of EVERY ALBUM EVER MADE being a click away. In a way, that takes away some of the discovery in life, some of the fun. But it also makes us more aware, knowledgable of even more in life, too...

But yeah, I dunno, something overcomes me sometimes and I just really want the "Actual" copy of stuff, even if I've already downloaded and burnt it -- or I could do that just as easily -- and filed it away. Ultimately, what the internet has taught me isn't just that everything is now really easy to access, it's taught me that there is SO MUCH OUT THERE, so much to consume ... we could live 10 lifetimes and still never consume all the cool shit that's out there. ... At the same time, I am currently a bit exhausted with all the movies/music/comics/video games/etc I have warped my mind with. I downloaded the most music when I was 13-18, when I didn't have a job and so on.. of course. Now that I have to deal with "LIFE ISSUES"(TM), sometimes I just don't get around to listening to that "ultrahip new record" for a few weeks. Oh well.

Now, speaking as a "musician" or whatever (and I'm using the term loosely, I don't take myself seriously enough to label myself that), I've "made music" for.... 13 years now... and uh, I've always, from day one, given it away for free. Just the joy of making it, the joy of others hearing it, inspires me to continue. I've made some money doing it, but all that money has went right back into equipment and... well, actually, I've lost more money than any I've made. So, yeah. My thing has always been this. I offer all my shit for free, and if someone feels the urge to donate some money, then cool. And I also try to make a physical copy available for a while in case someone actually wants to buy it, too. So, that's cool. I don't expect anyone else to have that policy, it's just my own personal philosophy.

I sincerely sympathize with bands who are touring right now, with gas being $5 a gallon, and the economy hitting rock bottom a few years back. All the small labels that stop -- remember a few years ago when EVERYONE had a label? Wow... so, yeah, I sympathize with these people, and I try to help them out in any way I can usually. The sad thing is, I can't help everyone all the time -- that's been the most difficult thing for me to face in my life. The fact that I can't make everyone happy at the same time.

So, yeah, I dunno. Downloading music has been one of the greatest things ever, for me, because it has propelled me into going to shows and discovering MORE music and ... just on and on and on and on.... but right now, I kinda just want to slow down and go back to how things used to be, personally... I have been purchasing a LOT more cd's lately (and I've also been buying tons of comic books/graphic novels, that's for another thread though) -- though admittingly, I haven't had the time to play all of them -- and I have only been downloading stuff that isn't really "available" (like the new Toddle). I'm going back to that "warm up to a record slowly" thing, I even bought a few blind purchases of musicians I'd never even heard of, who knows if I'll dig em?

I guess when I was younger, I wanted to be older. Now that I'm older, I want to be younger. Life moves way too fast for me. I can't keep up, honestly. I will never own a cellphone. I don't identify with anything that's really all that modern -- hell, music downloading is like 14 years old by now, at least! So, I am trying to slow down a bit myself. Stopping and smelling the roses.

Anyway, if any of the CD's I've bought recently really suck, maybe I'll try to sell them on here for a few bucks. That might be fun.

God, I just miss all the zines and startup labels and the times when everyone had a band and everyone was MAKING SHIT. We live in a time when EVERYTHING is SO easy to make -- you can make your own films/comics/music/etc with just the help of a little shitty Dell computer and a freeware program... but I think the rest of life is moving way too fast for a lot of people. It makes me feel weird.

I live secluded, in the woods. I recently got a car, after having to walk to work -- an hour, at least -- for 5 months. As soon as I got it, I burned the roads up, hanging out with friends and playing shows and doing all sorts of insane shit for like a month there. Now I'm back to sitting at a lonely desk, in a house with no one in it, about .5 miles from the road, down in a valley. It's good conditions to put on a new record and discover something again. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've searched the internet and bookmarked like 50 new things to check out later, in just an hour. My mind is ALWAYS working like that. But I'm trying to slow it down, if only for 40 minutes, to listen to this CD and take it in and really enjoy it. As long as it's not the Mars Volta, I'll find something to enjoy about this tranquility.

The older I get, the more aware I am of life and death. Like, I'm going to die. It's not going to be too long from now, you know? I mean, really. Same goes for lots of people here. I remember distinctly, once upon a time saying, "I WANT TO HEAR EVERY ALBUM EVER MADE!" Then it became "i WANT TO HEAR EVERY GOOD ALBUM EVER MADE!" Then: "I WANT TO HEAR ALL THE ESSENTIAL ALBMS EVER MADE!" Now it's "I want to hear a few thousand albums I love, over and over again." I really thought I had time, at some point, to hear every album ever made. I was seriously downloading thousands of albums by bands with "A" names on soulseek. I would sit there for hours and absord.. uh... A and Aa and Au and ... uh, A Perfect Circle... .. and uh.. yeah. Whatevever. You get my point. Now, I'm like, fuck, I have thousands of CD's I will never listen to, why not pair it down to the stuff I will listen to, no point in being some kind of ridiculous archivalist or something.. you can't take all that stuff with you when you die, so ... yeah. I dunno. I'll probably delete all this later.