Fear and Loathing Unto Creativity

It’s been awhile. How have you been? I’ve been writing songs. And I recently had the jarring experience of being really excited about them, recording a few quick demos, and then suddenly hating all the songs when I listened to the demos. It’s been a few weeks now, and I don’t hate my new songs […]

The New Gatekeepers

Democracy has come to creativity, and capitalism has come to overwhelm democracy. I am, of course, talking about the Amazon review scandal that has come to light, revealing that as many as 1/3 of all reviews on Amazon were bought and paid for. This is a catastrophe for everyone involved — musicians, writers, consumers, and […]

A New Bag for Old Tricks: I Attempt an Audiobook

The other night I set up mic, mixer, and preamp to record a couple of demos of new songs, and I figured, “Hey, why not try to make an audiobook?” It seemed easy enough. It’s been awhile, but I’ve been paid actual money in the past for voice over work and I know how to […]

Different Writing Muscles

Different kinds of writing require different brain muscles. I’ve been reminded of this recently as I’ve started exercising my prose muscles for the first time in a while. My first ambition, as I remember, was to be a professional novelist, back when I was small and green and the world could grow such things. I […]

Anybody Else Tired of Personal Branding?

One of my favorite lines of poetry is from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, where he writes: Do I contradict myself?Very well then I contradict myself,(I am large, I contain multitudes.)  This guy: sweaty-toothed madman,hates branding. As artists and human beings, we should probably be trying to embrace diversity, and what better place to start than […]