About me, until now, in beat form.
Act 1.
In an attic in suburban Melbourne I got used to the words NO. People told me I had a hand to write, a voice to speak, paint in my veins, but no channel for music- no antenna for song. At 19 I discovered Billie and Nina and opened a new door inside my chest and heart. I decided I could do it because I could see it and knew it like it was my own personal God. Little me was punk as the inferno.
Act 2.
I climbed the mountain hard. I made so very many mistakes, wrote every day, taught myself to paint and film the world around the stories told in music. I allowed heartbreak in like a cool change on a hot day so I could feed the beast that was my work. I rolled down the mountain over and over, becoming familiar with the rocks at the bottom- dreaming of the clouds at the top. Band after gig after group after project, I caught a ride on a label, whose dream was ugly and short but bigger than mine. I fell asleep under the Hollywood sign until one day - perhaps somewhat consciously - I was deported forever back to the obscure and conservative land of Oz, where I took the remaining steps to the top of the mountain and jumped off voluntarily when I met a version of myself I didn’t know, all to start again.
Act 3.
I waited in legal purgatory and when I finally had my name back and something to share, after half a decade…until the world stopped and so did the art. We became one with our devices- half human, half glow, that dystopian prophesy about robot people finally starting. Unable to separate and socially abandoned without social media (say it out loud), the entire globe embarked on a silent, unwilling revolution. That’s when the cracks began to form in our ability to commit.. To an idea, an artist, a work, a collection, a full film, 10 minutes > 3 minutes > 1 minute? > wait…30 seconds? So people started dancing- not for freedom or ecstasy, like no one is watching - but for the seconds that no one holds, in a neon temple of frantic self obsession for fear of abandonment.
So in short- I got lost and closed my eyes.
Act 4.
When we woke up from our home comas, things looked different, didn’t they? Music wasn't music. Art isn’t art. Paint doesn’t matter. What is an album? What is a pen? What was that dream we had about being successful - was the dream nothing but a dream that was nothing but a dream? I found out that 80000 songs a day are given to us for nothing, fine art can be made by a child who understands this world better than me, perhaps I am a generator spewing collected thoughts by the collective unconscious…maybe I’m not…does it even matter? We are all exhausted and overwhelmed with too much to hold…I am too. I make and make and make and make. I can’t stop, won’t stop, but I am being swallowed by my own work because I am the only one that feeds it and I am the only thing it eats.
Heavy is the head that wears the paper crown that we made as children telling us that our worth is based on recognition and power.
Art.
What is it now? I don’t have even one weenie answer. I want to know. I can’t stop and want to know why. I want to tell you about my album, my books, paintings and poems, but I don’t. I wan’t to hear about your work, but I can’t. The internet doesn’t deserve artists. It doesn’t deserve us. We are too good for it. We are too strong and brave and tenacious for it. It’s an abuse of its station and power and promise. It is hurting the artist and the artist is done.
This is not a cry for help. This is not a cry for anything other than to shed the tears, mourning for what we thought would happen whilst waiting for what is to come…with bated breath.
Close the curtains, no applause, I am just a clown…but I know better than before…
The only way up is down.