drink

[sc_embed_player fileurl=”http://www.nquit.com/sounds/semperThou/BugsWineDemons/04semperThouDrink.mp3″]Drink, by semper Thou

Man I love this one. But it’s actually a little intense to listen to too much. It’s very intense, emotionally and all.

Man though. It has these mandolins. This kid Eric just had all kinds of instruments in his little apartment and he could play ’em all and he would bring ’em over and go in the booth/Old Man Clothes Room and play ’em and play ’em. What a talented cat, srsly.

This one I really could hear it’s single quality, especially in the chorus. So much so that I couldn’t stand not to sing back up on it. But it’s definitely arranged wrong for a single. It’s creative in the way it’s arranged, but the arrangement isn’t single material. I mean you don’t hear that catchy chorus until way way in. It’s written more like a poem, but it has catchy melodies. I guess if we were really serious about making it a hit single, we’d arrange it differently or do two versions or something. That’s the difference between a small indie label and a major. On a major you’re just forced to be concerned about these things, whereas with a small indie, you don’t care.

People talk about that creative freedom and they talk about wanting it but I’m not sure how many people really would trade having millions of people listen to something for that creative freedom. I also think we probably are over-angry about lack of creative freedom at the level of the majors. I mean the fact is, for something to move the MASSES, a certain formula has to be applied (usually – there are definitely exceptions), and THAT limits your “freedom”, not an evil uncreative executive. Of course I temper THAT by saying that sometimes execs are OVERLY paranoid about formulas and sometimes we indies feel like they have so much power that anything they decided to force on the masses would reach at least a modest level of popularity, and why can’t they use that power to expand the minds of millions?

I don’t know. I know that I’ve always been an indie, and when you don’t give a shit about anything because you know nobody’s listening, then you pretty much do anything, and that’s fun I guess, but I improved and grew so much more when I started doing slam poetry because I was forced to really think about what was going to work for the people out in audience. I did a lot of experimenting and a lot of things didn’t last. That REALLY quickly developed my art as a performance poet, whereas as a recordist I didn’t develope as fast or as well, because I had no feedback.

The other thing is one of the major new themes of this blog, and that’s about being self centered versus concerned with other people. When you do something for other people it really holds a lot more power than when you just do it for yourself, whether or not you’re a Buddhist. And I might have already mentioned that in this blog. That yes there’s a sick sick fame/glory/money thing that happens, but originally, it’s about doing something bigger than yourself, and that’s not sick at all.

Oh well. La La La. Drink! ANNDNDDDD DRRIIIIIINNNNNKKKKK!!!