MUSIC AND THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE

Hear that sound? It’s called silence.

It’s a spooky roaring silence and with absolutely nothing happening.

Where has it all gone so horribly wrong despite all these music conferences, technology, bloggers, Spotify, apps, file-sharing etc?

Where’s the beef, where’s the money, where are the gigs?

What even happened to “What can a poor boy do/’cept play in a Rock’n Roll band'”

Were the Stones hopefully wishing we’d grow up to be guitar-toting Street Fighting Men?

Easy for Mick and Keith today even as they hurtle towards 70-years-old. Or young.

For the rest of us,

Earlier this week, some of us got an email from a singer-songwriter from the UK with a message that he “wants to share a song with you”.

Why not, thought many. A free song- and from someone we knew.

We then noticed that this “free song” came from a dating site in the UK.

Just fill in your personal details and you could choose a song to “woo her” or you can choose a song to tell her to “f-off.”

Hell, what’s happened?

This guy, now in his Thirties and who once saw himself as “the new Robbie Williams” was writing and peddling songs on an online dating site?

Okay, one guesses life is tough and it’s a way of getting his music “out there”, but where the fuck will this music end up?

What next? Songs for porn?

Frankly, it’s reality biting us on our asses.

Average talent attracts average opportunities.

Despite al the talk, digital this and digital that and despite even getting- maybe- a music company to take any interest in a band or solo artist- spare me the DYI route unless you have money to burn in a depressed economy where nothing is happening, anywhere.

Worse is that those who once went outta their way to help unknown musicians have their own battles to fight and little time for more free lunches where free ideas are wheeled out.

That one-time camaraderie is gone and one is really and truly DIY- and it’s fucking lonely out there.

Think of all those you’ve met here and there with promises of helping you out here and there and if they are here and there anymore?

They’ve come and gone after seeing you’re no longer a golden goose that’s going to lay even one golden egg for them.

They’ve moved on to embrace security and grow up.

So, what do you do?

You’ve had fans invest in you making a record- they are your “fund managers”- and you have had it produced.

Personally, I hate this new “business model” in that you end up owing the fans a favour and the production you get, you have to live with and make the best you can with what you know could have been so much better.

But this is where YOU have gone wrong and there’s no one else to blame:

You trusted others way too much and thought they’d always be there for you.

Why should they? They’ve been busy making other plans and where you didn’t fit in.

Now, like many around the world, you have the record, the packaging, but nothing else going for it- and you.

What do you do? Give them away for free? Now what?

We come into this world alone, we leave this world alone.

In-between, some of us make music- alone.

As if this is not enough, one need to do this, “Alone Again, Naturally.”

There is a need to work alone to make this music come alive, heard, played and make this work for you and only you.

Fuck everyone else- managers, girlfriends, friends, wives, baggage.

Believe in You.

It’s time these days to become self-reliant, trust few and only listen to the inner you.

The rest are just bit players in what someone has made look like a very complex opera on the surface when in actuality, all they are chess pieces put in front of you to see how and where you move them.

Your move, pal.