The pains of letting go... aka it'll never be good enough for, well, just me, I guess...

I love her so much, but she's not mine to love anymore...  It's over and she's (almost) gone...

I'm sure you've heard this before, but one of the hardest things for an artist to do is to let go of what they've been working on and putting all their time, energy and (sometimes) money into; in my case, that taking the form of an album.  One of the downfalls of creating music is that it'll never is good enough.  Nothing is ever as beautiful as the music in my own head.  The vision I have never matches the eventual sounds I hear.  It's a very common problem.  Hardly anyone I know who has made an album has ever been happy with it.  You get a lot of "I'm satisfied" but rarely happy.  I think it was Thom Yorke who said eventually they'll be able to plug a cable into the back of your head and then, finally, you'll be able to hear, purely and gloriously, what he is actually trying to create.  And if Thom Yorke isn't satisfied with what he's created, God help the rest of us fucks.

There's something terrifying yet enthralling about releasing a record.  You've worked so fucking hard for months, sometimes years, to get your music to this point.  The hundreds of shows, the countless hours spent rehearsing and working on your craft, the arguments, the late nights, the six hour drives for the forty-five minute shows, the time not spent with your family, friends, girlfriends, whomever, the depression, the doubt, the fear of wasting your whole life for some insane ideal existence that more than likely wouldn't make you any happier than you are at this very moment, the guilt of leaving your family, your eleven year old brother who could've used a little more male guidance but turned out just fine anyways (maybe he didn't need it or maybe he's just that fucking awesome to turn out as fucking awesome as he did), to head West (and then East and then West again and then back East and finally West again, for maybe the last time but probably not) to try and make a living playing music although I couldn't sing and I could barely play guitar; all of that just to make this fucking record.  My whole life is in this album.  All the love and hope and faith and fear I've ever known.  It's all there, for people to take in and experience.  It's me, all of me.  So, naturally I want it to be the best possible version of itself.  I want it to be amazing and beautiful.  I desperately want it to be the way I hear it in my head, untouched and unmarred by human hands.  But, unfortunately, and just like me, it won't be perfect.  It won't sound like I always dreamed it could.  I don't sound like I always dreamed I would (a combination of awesome with Robert Plant on vocals on Jimi Hendrix on guitar).  It cannot exist untouched or unmarred by human hands.  Humans have to be involved.  I have to rely on good ol' unreliable humans, including, and especially, myself.  You're always chasing something unattainable.  A sound that can't exist until someone makes it exist, but, in doing so, will degrade its purity and, therefore, its quality.  I could forever keep my music to myself, wonderful and perfect, but that would serve no purpose.  So, eventually you must commit it to tape (in this case literally to tape), accept it imperfectness and then let it go out into the world.  Once it's out, it's no longer yours.  It's very similar to a child.  You create it, work on it, make it the best you possibly can and then let it go and hope for the best, (un)confident you did the best you could.

Now, to be sure, one of the best things about having Asperger's is that I don't care about other people's feelings or reactions the way most people would.  In music, or art in general, this is a huge boon, and the reason I think many great artists have a touch of the autism.  This is where I have the advantage over many of my fellow musicians.  You see, I'm not worried about what other people will think about my album.  The reason releasing it is terrifying yet enthralling is that it will never live up to my standards, and those are the only ones I care about.  I want to be happy with it thirty years from now, should I live that long.  If people don't like it, fuck them, it's their loss.  I know my upcoming album ("In My Youth, I'm Getting Old...") is great and tells the stories we need more of:  human stories.  Too many songs are about falling in and out of love, mostly superficially as well.  That's the fucking easy part.  Anyone can fall in and out of love, sometimes multiple times a day.  These songs are about that whole fucking middle bit where you're trying to decide how much you want to let someone into your life and heart, whether this is just a temporary rough patch or the end, whether you should suck it up for the kids or move on so the kids don't have to deal with it, whether this marriage will be OK or is ruining our lives, whether I'm looking for reasons to leave instead of seeing the reasons to stay, whether we keep fighting or just say "fuck it" and go dancing, whether I'm too scared or not scared enough of this relationship, and on and on.  That's where the fucking meat and potatoes is.  The falling in and out of love is ten to twenty percent of the relationship experience.  The bulk resides in all the other shit.  That's where "In My Youth, I'm Getting Old..." lives.  They say write what you know, so that's what I fucking did.  My friends and I are/were in our mid to late twenties and going through the round of divorces and breakups and struggles of whether to stay together or cut our losses and move on before it's too late, that start to happen around this time.  No one fucking knows who they are when they are eighteen to twenty, so to commit to someone long-term at that time is more likely to fail than succeed; and we definitely didn't help the success rate.  But, out of that came the beginnings of these songs and the vision for the album.  Sometimes it's better to go out dancing, forget about everything for a night and just live to fight another day.  Sometimes you just can't.   Somewhere in the middle is where we spend a lot of our days.  I needed these songs.  I doubt I'm alone...

I'm at the finishing stages with "In My Youth, I'm Getting Old..."  She's about to be out of my hands and into yours.  Treat her well.  It wasn't easy to get her here, believe me.  Someday I'll tell the whole story, but for now just know I love her and always will.  I gave her my best and I hope it was enough...

Some rambling shit about why I think my album is great... aka why listening to entire albums is still worth it

Rambling about my album...  It's not bragging if I explain why I'm right...  Right?

I realize that I am a dinosaur in this regard, and I definitely reside in the minority (both as an injun and for the following reason), but I still regularly sit down and listen to albums; fucking start to fucking finish.  Not necessarily just with my vinyl LP's or on special occasions, but a good chunk of my music listening occurs this way.  To be sure, my Asperger's undoubtedly plays a role in that (we're finishers!  That's what she said... sometimes) but it doesn't tell the whole story.  There's just something indescribably beautiful that happens when an artist creates a world that exists as a much larger realm than the sum of the 10, give or take, individual worlds he or she has created.  I love the feeling of being overwhelmed with the majesty of a start to finish album listen.  Some people say the end of an album should make you want to flip it over (or rewind it or press play again or double click it again or tell Siri or Google or whatever robot voice to "fire that fucking shit up again muthafucker!  Let's kick it!") and listen again.  Billy Joel certainly doesn't, as BILLY JOEL ALWAYS SAVES HIS WORST FOR LAST.  Or maybe that's a brilliant fucking move.  End on a low note to make people want to flip the album back over so they can listen to something great again before returning to the non-music-listening portion of their lives.  I too feel the opposite.  When I get to the end of an album I want to feel satisfied, exhausted and full of wonder (Hmm, sounds like the way you feel after... you know what I mean...)(sorry to inject again, but I'm talking about sex, coitus, knockin' boots, takin' the old log to the beaver, going for a ride on the old baloney pony... can't remember the rest)(sorry, me again, you guys got that, right?  Grumpy Old Men reference?)(wait, that's what hipsters love to do:  hit you over the head with the explanation of the joke)(hipsters suck...)(wait, I could edit mine out, but then that would ruin the verite style of writing I use.  This is a choice, man.  Deal with it.  Sometimes it works like poetry and sometimes you get...  What the fuck am I rambling about?)(wait, I don't think verite relates to writing.  I think that's more of a stream-of-consciousness-type thing)(shit, doing it again.  Sorry, on with the show...), the way I do after hearing "Jungleland" or "Motion Picture Soundtrack" or "Here Comes a Regular" or "Roisin Dubh (Black Rose):  A Rock Legend" or "Fillmore Jive" or "Styrofoam Boots/It's All Nice on Ice, Alright" or "Buckets of Rain" or "The Beat Goes On."  OK, so that last one was a joke, everyone knows Britney's masterpiece "...Baby One More Time" should have just fucking ended with "E-Mail My Heart," the best song on the album; and yes, that was back when there was still a fucking hyphen in that word...  Good times...  Remember ICQ?  And nervously typing non-sequiturs or obscure references, usually Metallica lyrics from "Ride the Lightning" or why Half-Life was the best computer game ever (still not sure why this form of communication never got me any...  Well, any kisses, I was goddamn 10 or 11 at the time you weirdos!), to some girl who lived three or four blocks over and was someone you could just go shoot hoops, rollerblade and flirt with in real life?  No?  Just me?  Good times...  I wonder what happened to Amy?  Good lookin' gal...  Sorry, off topic again.

Anyways, the reason I bring all that up, rambling as it may seem, is to say that is something I strive for when putting together an album.  You can hear it in my first record "Burn What You Can, Bury the Rest..." and I believe you can hear it in my upcoming album "In My Youth, I'm Getting Old..."  Putting an album together is so much more complex than picking your favorite 10 songs and slapping them together.  The overall sound, the instrumentation, the performances, the flow, the dynamics; and even if you get all that set, you still need to nail the tracklist.  I always think of the tracklist like a baseball lineup, only if your pitcher was one of your best hitters.  You need something to start off strong and get a "hit" as often as possible.  The second song has to keep the inning going and move the record forward.  The third is one of your highest average hitters.  This is where you want to score your first run of the record.  The fourth needs to bring the power, and the fifth is more like a 4 1/2, not as big a swing but still needs to close Side A strong.  I like my sixth to get things moving again with seven and eight bringing their own talents to the table.  Nine closes it out, hard.  (I'm also partial to Bruce Springsteen's "corner" theory.  The first and last song of side A and the first and last song of side B need to be your top songs, your cornerstones, if you will, and then you fill in the rest)

I missed a couple of those on the first album (especially the whole starting off with a "hit."  I opted for the slow burn into the album, which worked since the song was so amazingly well-written, thanks Jon!  But I'm not sure that's what I'd do if I was making that record again today) but nailed the rest of the feel, flow, rising and falling action, etc., etc.  With the new album "In My Youth, I'm Getting Old...," I really dialed the track order in.  I went over countless (well, like 10; sitting with each one for a week or so before moving on) variations until I found it.  And, since it eventually will be released on vinyl, you also have to take that into account.  You have to make sure the sides are fairly evenly separated and neither side runs too long.  All of which is to say that I'm extremely proud of this soon-to-be-released album.  Recorded live to tape, in one warehouse room, warts and all but with the energy of four guys who've played countless shows together, can feel where I'd like to take a song, even live in the moment and can even fucking breathe with the same musical nuance.  It's definitely one of those sum is greater than the parts type deals and that's why it was recorded that way.  It isn't the easiest way to make a record (tape warbles or malfunctions, one guy misses a note and you start over, etc.) but it was the right fucking way for these songs.

TAKE A LISTEN TO THIS SNEAK PREVIEW:  "SOME GIRLS (STILL LOVE ROCK N' ROLL)"

And hear for yourself if I'm just talking a bunch of shit, or I'm speaking the truth.  After a few bourbons, a bunch of shit or the truth start to sound the same...  At least to me.

What's the deal with new music? aka why it just can't mean as much...

Why newer music seems worse, but why the older stuff isn't necessarily better; unless it actually is...  That seems intentionally confusing to make you more interested...  Yep, that's the fucking point...

It's strange that it keeps coming up.  I feel like I've had some form of the same conversation at least a hundred times over the past five years.  Whether with longtime friends, fellow musicians, strangers at the record store, it doesn't matter, it seems to always find a way into the conversation.  At this point I'm wondering if somehow I'm putting off the vibe.  It's got to be me, right?  (The whole world revolves around me, right?  I am the Truman Show, aren't I?)  But no, the last few times in particular I know that I didn't bring it up.  Or did I?  Having Asperger's, I do tend to bring up the same things over and over.  My girlfriend thinks I never listen to her, and she's probably right, but hopefully it makes her feel at least a little better to know that I never listen to myself either.  It probably doesn't, but still.  Which is weird since I love learning things about other people and listening to them talk is the best way and blah, blah, blah, I'm already off-topic...

What starts this conversation I keep running into is some form of the question "Do you continue to listen to new music?" or "do you still actively seek out new music?"  It's usually followed by a statement on the current state of the music industry, how the labels don't breed artistry, how there's just too many bands and no simple way to sort through them, how there's not enough time to waste on trying to listen to countless bands in order to find one that you actually may like; you know, that sort of thing.  Now, I'm not saying I don't understand this sentiment or haven't spent hours thinking about this myself, trust me, I have.  For years, I felt the same.  New music was shit and I wanted no fucking part of it.  There were enough brilliant records out in the ether that I could spend my life just trying to catch up and never come close to succeeding.  In fact, you can read my thoughts on this, at length I might add, in a two-part blog I wrote in this very space.  See:  PART I and PART II.  So I get it, I really do.  But, with the help of some fancy new tools (Spotify mostly), I no longer subscribe (wholly) to this theory.

Now, for sure, there's a lot to be made about the fact that we are just not as impressionable in our older age, not that I'm "older," but I'm not 16 anymore (yes, ladies, I'm over 18.  So, you know... nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more, say no more...) either.  So, no, I don't anticipate that a record will hit me the same way "The Lonesome Crowded West" did and, of course, there's no way to hear "Bold as Love," "Born to Run" or "Blonde on Blonde" again for the first time (what's with all the B's?  The best bourbons all start with "B" as well.  List for another day perhaps...  All I'll say for now is that John Wick and Bradley Wik share similar tastes...).  But, then again, those are landmark albums the likes of which we'll never see again, so you have to remove them from this conversation.  You can't see the grandiose grandeur of a Monet for the first time "again" or watch "Pulp Fiction" for the first time "again" either.  And yes, I do think of Monet and Tarantino on the same scale of artistry.  It's the same way I'd put Ellsworth Kelly and Michael Bay in the same echelon as well; fucking talking about THIS and THIS, respectively...  Fucking pricks, the both of them...

But, following this train of thought does get us a lot closer to what I feel is the truth.  Here's the reason I believe we stop searching for and finding new artists that really make us feel something:  as we get older and more knowledgeable about music, there's more and more we can compare these new artists to.  It's not fair but it's true.  I'll give you a "for instance."  The first CD I ever bought (in 1996, in case you were wondering, which you probably weren't, but fuck it.  Also, to flesh out your Bradley Wik trivia, the first cassette tape I ever bought was Weird Al's "Greatest Hits Volume II") was The Wallflowers' "Bringing Down The Horse."  Now, when I first heard "One Headlight" or "The Difference" I thought those songs were unlike anything I'd ever heard prior.  For sure, they were doing something great, which they would never accomplish again, by the way, on that album but it wasn't the mind-boggling, genre-defining thing I thought I was hearing.  But I was 9, what did I know other than I really liked it?  The songs on that album are so well-written and the production is amazing, so who knows, it might still hit me the same way today, just for different reasons.  That album is still great and I still love it, but it doesn't sound as unique as it once did.

I'll give you another.  Currently, there are two albums I cannot stop playing on repeat:  PUP's "The Dream is Over" and The Jellyrox's (or The Jellyrox'?  How the fuck do you make that a possessive?) "Bang and Whimper."  I know what you're thinking if somehow you know both these bands, but, yes, punk rock and synth pop go so well together, seriously.  Like bleu cheese, roast beef and apples.  No fucking joke, try it on whole wheat bread.  It's delicious.  Unless you're gluten-intolerant or just have no patience for gluten and you won't tolerate it.  Then maybe try it over a bed of mixed greens, just not fucking kale; that shit tastes like fucking dirt.  Or, more simply, how about you just listen to these fucking masterpieces back to back:

PUP - "DVP"

The Jellyrox - "Hoop"

How much fun are those?  Almost too much.  Like a puppy and a kitten snuggling...  Sorry, picturing that now...  But, PUP's "The Dream is Over" is the kind of album that ten years ago would've changed my life as I played it non-stop for six fucking months, memorizing every single word and beat and note and nuance til it became a part of me.  But that particular hole they look to fill has already been filled by the Hold Steady (not saying it's the same music, outside of "The Coast" sounding like a Hold Steady B-side); a band that fucking changed my life as I played "Boys and Girls in America" non-stop for six fucking months and memorized every single word and beat and note and nuance til it became a part of me.  On the opposite end, we have The Jellyrox.  I don't know fuck-all about synths (although after months and months of fucking around with my Moog Sub 37, you'd think I'd picked some up.  Well, I have just not enough, clearly, after listening to this record) or synth pop music past Duran Duran and whatever Genesis or Phil Collins used on their albums, so this record hit me hard.  I already know most of the words, and by the time I take "Bang and Whimper" out of my car, I'll know every... well, you know the rest...  I just don't have a frame of reference for this album so it sounds like aliens learned english and how to craft amazing songs and sing and record and mix and master their music and release it on a piece of plastic that uses laser beams to extract the 0's and 1's and, in turn, return them into their musical form.  In fact, that sounds like every CD now that I think about it...  Except MINE.  But that's only because I know I'm not an alien; I have two eyes, two ears, a nose, an appendix, tonsils (yep, got 'em both.  Suck on that nerds...), a spleen, an average sized penis and knees that still don't like running (thanks Coach Murphy!).   Otherwise, the whole CD thing still doesn't make sense...  Probably why I still prefer vinyl.  Shameless plug:  Be on the lookout for the vinyl release of my new album "In My Youth, I'm Getting Old..." (yes, I'm obsessed with long names and ellipsises, ellipsisses, ellipsi?  Fuck!).  But that's not meant to take anything away from The Jellyrox, it's just to say that the record means more to me being my first foray into this world apart from some requisite CHVRCHES tracks.  And, no offense to CHVRCHES (that lead singer is so fucking hot and has such a sexy voice, goddamn it, that Scottish accent, that I'd like to, well, you know, nudge, nudge, wink, wink), but The Jellyrox is much more impressive.  Matt (lead singer, songwriter, producer, talented muthafucker) can sing and play his fucking ass off.  Although, I've had the pleasure of meeting him in person, and though I didn't inspect it too thoroughly, it seemed like he still has an ass.  Maybe he can regenerate it after singing and playing it off, who knows.  Fucking extremely talented people, they always seem to have magical powers and he is no different.  My magical powers are drinking, swearing and eating...  Not as impressive.  Fuck, I got shafted again!

It's also kinda funny how pervasive this idea is.  Everything seems better, by comparison, to when we were younger, even sports.  The last Super Bowl notwithstanding (Greatest Game Ever, since Super Bowl XXXI.  Yes, I'm a hopelessly homer Packer fan and watching Brett Favre win the Super Bowl and restore glory to Green Bay is still the most important game I'll ever see), football was better when I was a kid.  Same for basketball and baseball.  Though, of all of them, baseball is definitely the closest to its' former glory.  What a wave of young, talented shortstops in Lindor, Correa, Bogaerts, Seager, Arcia, and on and on.  And a great crop of catchers and infielders and center fielders and pitchers, shit, I guess baseball is just good again.  Took me until a couple years ago to forgive the steroids and that terrible era of Sosa and McGwire and Bonds and Clemons.  It was so fucking obvious!  Come on (does his best Job voice)!  Wait, Super Bowls, CD's, vinyl, baseball, what the fuck was I talking about?  Oh yeah, I don't remember.  Good night and good luck!