What hurts the most

I was giving an interview with Selene from The Metro the other day. We had been talking about the new record, and the conversation turned towards criticism - how it affects our music, or me in general. We spoke a bit about how it is such a pitfall to turn toward critics to shape your music. The conversation then lead me to realize this duality that seems to live inside of me: the fact that I deeply care about what people think, yet don't give a fuck what people think...and the surprising notion that these two feelings co-exist inside of me, simultaneously.

This realization took me aback; such cognitive dissonance! How could I not care what people thought, yet fear a negative album review, or more so, fear, so much so, the disapproval of my peers? It seems like such a contradiction, and also an afront to everything I believe - my ethos: I always wanted to make music I wanted to make, regardless of public opinion, regardless of whatever was cool.

It seems like an obnoxious way to think, this idea of turning your back on the audience. After all, isn't it they who hold the key to your success? Shouldn't any artist feel obligated to give yield to the demand of their fans? To feel like they owe the fans something in return for the support that said fans haven given over the years? I feel that the only way I can answer this question is with a resounding "YES!" However, this comes with a serious caveat: What I owe to the fans more than anything is to NOT listen to them.

Perplexing as it may be - that ultimately is what your fans TRULY want: they want the experience of experiencing things THROUGH you, the artist. They don't want you to talk about their lives - they want you to talk about your life, and when it happens to shadow what they are going through, that's when the connection with the artist is made. I don't want to hear Thom Yorke singing about my problems - I want to hear Thom Yorke sing about his problems - and when I have the same problem, I feel connected to him, I feel human. We all want this connection.

Further more, if we listen to fans, which fan do we listen to? I have fans tell me that they want us to play 'Dance and Holler' - and if we played it 12 times in one set, and not one other song, they would be happy....or I've had fans tell me that song is the time in the our set when they go get a beer. So who do I listen to?

No one. The answer is no one. You can't make everyone happy, you can only try to make yourself happy, which leads me back to my original point - if I am trying to just make myself happy, then why do I care so much about what other people say about the record? Why, if I am only trying to please myself, make a record that I like, to make make MYSELF happy - then why do I fear other opinion? Well, as I was talking to Selene the truth hit me: I am not happy with myself.
I hate my voice, I hate the way I look, I hate so much about what I do - but not in a silly superficial way, in a good way: in a way that keeps me striving to be better, to be a better performer, to be a better person, to be a better son, to be a better ANYTHING. All these fears, these short-comings, these things that I dislike about myself is TRULY what I am afraid of.

When some critic claims that the record is dull- FUCK him (I'm pretending the critic is a guy). Fuck him - I don't really give a shit that some dude I never met thinks the record is dull, because I don't think that the record is dull. I don't mean that in a mad aggressive way; I could still be friends with someone that doesn't like the record, what I mean to say is that I don't really give a shit about their opinion of it. However, if someone says "The record is great, but the lead singer has a whiny voice that ruins it". Then - oh no.

Yet, it isn't because I care what they think - it's because that's what I think. Deep down, my deepest fears, my nightly prayers that no one notices...and no! This critic caught me, he found me out...
The hardest criticism to hear is the criticism that reflects what you fear the most about yourself. When someone agrees with the things that I fear the most about myself, when someone calls it out, it sends shivers down my spine, it resonates with me and all the shortcomings I've ever had, all the weaknesses I've ever had, and most importantly: all the things about myself that I fear the most. It is this, that causes the duality.

The harshest critic is me - and when I see the words written out loud, in print, as if the critic, like some sort of medium, channeled all the ghosts that haunt me, that haunt my dreams - it scares the hell out of me. It is the ying and yang of all of me. Why I couldn't give a fuck what someone says one time, yet other times, it cuts me to the bone. This reflection of myself and my shortcomings in others:

That is what hurts the most.

Gotta have a story...

Is music always contextual?
That is - does the music we like ALWAYS have some sort of story behind it? When you play a new artist for someone, do you have to preface it, as if to explain WHY this is so great? I always felt like music should stand on its own - that nothing I could say to DESCRIBE the music would ultimately lead someone to liking it more; if they liked it, they did, if not - there was nothing I could say to change their minds. However, as many of you know, TEV have been working with a national publicist, and I am beginning to realize more and more that the question on the press' lips isn't "How is the music?", it is: "What's the STORY?".
Do we have a story?

It's so subtle sometimes - because, with a lot of great music, it goes hand in hand, so there is no real 'fault' to having a story behind the music. For example, when I listen to Bon Iver's record, I find it to be okay. It doesn't blow me away...but when I tell people that, they say: "Well, did you hear the STORY of how it was made?" (He made the record alone in a cabin for 6 months).
Well yes, I did hear that story, but what does that have to do with the music? Without that context, the music seems rather bland to me.

However, maybe all music is always about context - some is provided for us, some isn't. Like the music I remember playing on the computer when I kissed someone I loved, that record stays with me as one of my favs (Bic Runga's "Beautiful Collision" if you're wondering.) And so, I will fully admit that, as good as that record may be, I hold it in higher esteem because of the context that I gave it - the memory I attached to it...and maybe that's what irks me the most about finding a 'story' with the new artists - I want to give it the story.

This is a troublesome problem that plagues TEV in other aspects as well, for along with a story..how do you 'pitch us' to someone? With our good friends Band Camaro - just think about it (I, in fact, have had this convo with more than one person whom hadn't heard of Bang Camaro):
Me: "Okay - so they are a metal band"
Person: "Yeah?"
Me: "And they come out on stage and have 20 lead singers...they tear the place down. They only sing shout choruses..."
Person: "Holy crap...20 lead singers?"

And then that person check them out. But with us - what do you tell someone?
"Um...they are a five piece band....um...they're good?"

So think about describing Bon Iver to someone who has never heard them before, and not being able to put a story, or context to it:
"Guy, acoustic guitar....he's good?"

What could our story be? We, in the Visuals, try so hard not to fall into that trap - but if it costs us new potential fans, then what is the point of being stubborn...why not give them a story? Should we lead with the fact that I am cripple? Does that have any bearing on my music? Yes. I suppose it does - a big theme of what I wrote about on this new record is me dealing with my condition. Yet - does this make the music BETTER?

No. It just gives us a story, something that can catch a writers eye - something to set us apart. A foot in the door, if you will. Perhaps we are being too snobby, too uppity, and too downright proud. Is it that bad to let people who need context for music they have never heard before have it, albeit artificially? I mean, we do need to remember, these editors who write for Rolling Stone, Spin, etc. when they listen to this music for the first time, it is in the car, or in an office...it's not when they are kissing someone for the first time, or hanging with good friends, or falling in love. Chances are that the memories attached to our record are going to be rather mundane - so maybe it behooves us to set the scene a little for them:

"Picture a boy, who grew up sick his whole life. A son of a musician, he always felt one step behind his father's accomplishments - never fully being able to satisfy the expectations that were placed on him. If every breath wasn't the best breath he took - it was failure. This pressure boils over and propels him out of his father's shadow as a wunderkind - playing multiple instruments, singing, and writing his first song at 10, recording his first full length record at 14. He meets a mad genius friend, a multi instrumentalist as well, who matches his obsession for music, and choosing their own outcast status in exchange for the time to meticulously practice and refine, they set off to change music.
Growing increasingly ill, as the disease that has no cure slowly cripples his body, he becomes increasingly apprehensive that, before long, he may not even be able to play guitar anymore, as his hands have become bent and swollen. He bands together with his compatriots, who all are focused on one goal and they leave their home in NH and move to Boston - carrying with them the album that has every bead of sweat, every loss, every uncertainty, every howl of desperation all captured, there, for everyone to hear."

And then I play you the record. Does it sound...better?

hmmmm.

-C

Pop is fucking (aka. Everything to all people? / aka. Coldplay is just as bad as Wavves)

There is a rather distasteful joke on Family Guy (yes, I know family guy is horrible - bear with me), it is a flashback sequence of sorts, where we find the Peter's ancestors (who happen to be southern slaves) sitting around a humble dinner table. As the joke goes, it is revealed that this 'black Peter's' children are actually the sons and daughter of the white slave owner's daughter (played by Lois). The punch line comes when Stewie, the youngest child of this inter-racial relationship, upon hearing this news, exclaims: "You mean I am black AND white? That means I'll be accepted by EVERYONE!" The irony of course is that unfortunately, in present day, that is pretty far from the truth. In reality, which is the crux of the joke, the way it works is that the white community finds you as a black person, and the black community sees you as white - and neither fully accept you as their own.
I know that is a strange story to open up a blog post with - but I do have a point. It has always been my prerogative to try and bridge the gap between the mainstream music world, and the insular 'indie' world. It seems that very few artists can convince the critics and the public that popularity and artistic credibility are, at the very least, not inversely correlated, and even more - mutually exclusive. It's a strange musical landscape we live in now, the schism between underground rock and mainstream rock is so wide, that to bridge that gap has become increasingly more daunting. It wasn't always this way: all the bands that got me INTO music - Nirvana, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Sonic Youth, etc. were ALL major acts - Nirvana could sell out stadiums, Sonic Youth used to be played on MTV! Yet, they still would have appealed (and do appeal) to the 'pitchfork crowd'. (Note: Pitchfork media is a website that focuses on the underground music scene, it is commonly known as THE taste maker site exposing the next big underground thing).
However, the trouble I find myself with is that this duality that existed when I started music, this duality that I longed for has gone away. The acts that still achieve this balance, in my opinion, Radiohead, Wilco, Pearl Jam and the like have all been 'grandfathered in' it seems by this free pass to be as much of a stadium act as they like, and still have the indie cool of an underground band. This is most troubling to me since I feel that THIS is where The Everyday Visuals and I exist. One foot firmly in the indie world, one foot in the pop, and as the joke goes, instead of everyone liking us, we cannot find full acceptance in either group. I find we are just a little too noisy, too off-beat to have a big pop hit - yet, too hooky to find buzz in the indie world. What we have found is our fan base is just like us - savvy enough to know that a catchy tune isn't something to be afraid of, and loves the challenge of a song that doesn't exactly go where you think it should. A person that loves how a Wilco tune can get stuck in your head, but also loves how noisy the Dirty Projectors can be. This group is a small, exclusive, group it seems. It's a group of people who remember how music used to be, how artists STRIVED to appeal to a larger audience because, for fuck sake, they had something to say.
I don't want to just preach to the choir - I don't want our music to stay under the radar, appealing to only a small group of people that read one online music blog to decide what their tastes should be. I want to sneak in the back door (dirty jokes notwithstanding) of the pop world, to catch the ear of the Jonas Brothers fan, the Fray fan, the Coldplay fan, just a SLIVER of a song to catch their ear, so that they can discover a whole other world of music. I want to be that band that got them INTO good music, that got them to throw away their Jonas Brothers CDs and buy a Pet Sounds CD instead. For as much as we look at the pop world as self-serving and ignorant, the indie world is as big of a circle jerk as what it originally was a response to. It has become a parody of itself. I want a fate where a 10.0 on pitchfork doesn't doom us to playing clubs sizes like the Mideast downstairs forever, and where a pop hit means we'll never have any artistic credibility.

I wrote a song once - it was off our CD Media Crush. On the record it was called: "Radio Edit Sing Along", but the original title was "Pop is fucking". The name came from this analogy I used to make about the spectrum of music, it went something like this:
Good music, that is, real, meaningful, heartfelt music is akin to making love. You commit to this music, it touches you deeply and when you are done listening it stays with you. That, to me, is making love.
Bad music is superfluous - sure, it feels good to listen to, but it doesn't challenge you, it makes you happy while its happening, but when its done, it leaves your mind as quickly as it enters. That, is pop music - that is FUCKING.

The pop world is obsessed with fucking. They just want the quick fix, and it is on to the next big thing. Yet, the indie world has shaped up to the same thing - quick fix, and then: what's the next big band? Well, I don't want to fuck. I don't want to be part of a scene that just fucks - and I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to try to sell ourselves short appealing to either crowd exclusively. I think we have it in us to be better than both of those alternatives - and if you're reading this, you know what I mean.
As wide as the gap is between two world only concerned with appealing to themselves, we will bridge it, we will find that medium space where where bringing our music to the mass doesn't mean that we had to compromise or water down anything. We'll teach these fuckers how to make love.