Alki

 I

Yesterday we had a great day. We went to Alki Beach in Seattle. I had fish and chips for lunch with loads of hot sauce on the chips. I love hot sauce, especially in America. We then went and played cricket on the beach and I walked into the water. There was a lot of seaweed but it was heavenly. After the beach, we went to a diner and I had a salted caramel malt shake. I will never do that again - it made me feel ill. I didn’t see anyone else smoking on the beach, which was strange. Nobody smokes here in Seattle. I released my latest EP called Leftover Fries on Bandcamp. I’m really proud of these songs, especially the opener called All I Can Do. I’m unsure of what I should record next at Störsender. The new songs don’t really need drums and I’m trying to conform to a certain brand. The brand is serious, witty, introspective songs. Singer-songwriter style rather than rock or indie. I was going to re-record Estella but it doesn’t really fit the brand and I’m not going to play it live. Maybe I should just write some new songs and see if they need drums. It’s a bit problematic for me, because most of my best songs are singer-songwriter, man with a guitar sort of songs but drums, bass etc. make songs more accessible to the casual listener. I think Silver Jews do it really well, they make what are essentially man and guitar songs into band songs. That’s the vibe I’m going for and I will have to decide by the time I get back. I also posted In Between the Lines, the drums version on YouTube. A friend has already commented on it, which is nice. I also found a website called GetMusic.fm which allows you to share download codes for Bandcamp with people and apparently helps you get more followers. I’m going to try it out. 

II

I had a great conversation this evening about politics and philosophy. My interlocutor was somebody with a keen, enquiring mind and a combative intellect. We got onto my personal beliefs and I read him the previously posted Bakunin quote. He said my views were utopian and I agreed. He then asked why I don’t go and live off-grid. I said that I’m more interested in freedom of the mind within whatever system you are in rather than destroying the system or living outside of it. We both agreed that Eastern philosophy is centred more on the freedom of the mind of the individual and the conversation ended. Earlier on in the conversation I said I was an anti-capitalist and he pulled me up on that. I realised that I’m not really an anti-capitalist although it does depend a little on definitions. He is an engineer for work, not necessarily the Engineer personality 100%, but certainly more than me. He said that I was being close-minded, considering art, writing and music as the only sort of creativity and that nowadays during mature capitalism people are using their creativity in different ways. I’m not sure about his definition of the word ‘creativity’. I understand that people who work for companies are being creative in a sense and that those who develop computer programs are creating something out of nothing, but surely it’s a different kind of creativity to starting with an empty page and creating a song, poem or piece of writing. We didn’t go into definitions per se, but I have a theory that it is the person in an argument, who gains control of the definitions, who is victorious. For example, in an argument about politics, if you can gain control of the word ‘capitalism’ to suit your own ends in the argument then you are a long way to ‘winning’ the argument. This theory can be extrapolated to let’s say the culture wars as a whole where the national or international argument is defined by who can gain control of the use if certain words. For example, the word ‘woman’ used to mean a certain thing as in somebody with ovaries and a vagina etc. but recently the left have a different definition - somebody who identifies as a woman. I’m not going to go into my personal views just say that the eventual ‘winner’ of the argument, will be the side who imposes their own definition on the other side, either through force or cultural assimilation. 

III

I’ve been really struggling to write my artist bio. I need it for the getmusic.fm promo and other promo. I’ve already got a bio but I’m disillusioned with it’s flowery language. It tells rather than shows and doesn’t communicate what the listener or audience feels and thinks when listening to the music. For example it says I have a dry humour but doesn’t show I have a dry humour. I also doesn’t have a hook, leading instead with where I’m from and where I live, which is boring. Most artists don’t care so much about the bio but I do because I feel it shows a big part of my identity.