Things moving forward

A Facebook friend of mine, a guitarist offered to record some tracks. I sent him two songs to listen to. I'm quite anxiously waiting for what he has to say. The thing is, of course, that I'm not a guitarist myself, as I explained earlier, so I can't naturally hear/see whether something is easy or difficult to play. I'll leave it to him to comment and make suggestions.

If he records the guitars I'll be one step closer to releasing an actual demo, with which I can possibly attract players from my region. Of course, he could be the guitarist but he lives in another city, 500 km east. Training would be scarce, nearly impossible. And expensive.

On another matter: Everyone on social media is showing off their support for gay marriage, now that the U.S has finally passed the law to legalize it. It's all good and fine, I'm happy for those who can now marry their sweethearts, make a public commitment to them and have the same legal rights as the rest of us. I just got tired of the hype already. It must be just my cynicism and general hatred of humankind, because of course it's a cause for celebration, but I get the feeling that most people just ride on this holy horse of supporting a thing they actually couldn't care less about. "Look at me! I support these rights too! I'm a good person, and at least I'm not a biggot!". Good for you.

It's the same phenomenon whether it's human rights issues, environmental issues, ethical issues or any other issue you are expected to have an opinion about. You can also see it in fashion and all other trends that surface every once in a while. It's this herd behaviour that I get sick from.  How many of us actually formed our opinions based on facts and not on what everyone else is doing? How many of us actually thought it through before spewing out an opinion? How many of us can actually say that hes/her opinion is one of hes/her own?  Most of us don't have that honour, and I include myself in that.

I always hate it when I see signs of this herd behavior in me. I hate it even more when I catch myself from being self-righteous, thinking that at least I don't do the things they do. At least I'm a good person. Because I have the same trendy opinion than all the others around me. And I show it on Facebook.

So I wrote a song about it a while ago, one of the two songs I just sent to the guitarist willing to record. Here's the chorus:

And we laugh and we laugh

until we choke

and we want to cry

but the tears won't show

and everything bad

is someone else's fault

'cause we are good people

we're such good people

How to find band members?

That's the question that has been  bugging me for a while now. I've tried to find players through several channels, on a musicians' wanted-page, asking around through friends, all that. It doesn't seem to work out.

I suspect that this genre is one reason. It's just not big enough to attract people. All genres of metal are widely popular where I live but Goth isn't such a thing. Often Goth gets confused with metal, especially Gothic Metal (You know, Nightwish, Lacuna Coil and the likes) because the aesthetics are much alike. Most people here who dress goth don't necessarily listen to any "real" or original Goth bands. So it's hard to find guitarists for example, who'd understand what I'm stylistically looking for.

I asked a guitar player to try and join, if she likes the music. She tried but then said that the music is too depressing. But I got to know some cool people through her. We had one rehearsal- or should I say try out-session together and then they all said they didn't feel like this music was for them. Such a shame! So now it's still only me and the drummer, who actually is my brother by the way. Usually good bands are formed with friends and the music evolves from playing together. It's really difficult the other way around, having the music but no players. Well, I have brothers and friends but they live far away or bands are not their cup of tea...

To find people that would actually enjoy playing this kind of music: this dark, pessimistic, melancholic rock, that stylistically looks back to Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, Fields of the Nephilim, all those Gothic landmarks... To find those people there has to be a way. So I've decided that I'm going to put together two or three songs and record demos of them at my other brother's studio. I'm able to do vocals and keyboards, maybe even some of the guitars, and the drummerbrother will do the drums, of course. Then we'll put these demos out there, to Soundcloud for example, and restart the lookout for players. It's going to be much easier for any interested players to decide whether this is for them, or not.

This process is actually already started. I have completed two of the three intended songs on paper and in LMMS, with vocals and lyrics and everything. Now I just need to schedule and plan the recording sessions. I hope this will happen at the end of this summer...

The Cycle

My life is made of seasons, an on-going cycle of highs and lows that can significantly affect my creative processes. Recently I wrote a diary to reflect on just that phenomenon and to maybe find out what's behind it. When I started I thought the cycle was closely linked to all kinds of projects I'm working on. More specifically I thought the lows were due to projects ending and not having a new one in sight. While writing I realized that wasn't the whole truth of the matter.

I think there are several factors that influence the occurrence of these fluctuations. Projects ending is just one of them. The other obviously significant factor is everything that is happening in my personal life: relationships, work, social networks, money-issues... everything that creates stress and eats away of my creative capacity. On the other hand, when everything is stable and working out, there's more room for creativity.

Then there's the hormonal cycle. I'm not kidding, and not claiming it's the same for every woman out there. Some people even say there's no such thing as PMS. For me it's physical reality. Physical in the sense that not only my emotional state, but also vigor and strength varies in accordance of the hormonal cycle. Some days before and during menses I feel exhausted and slow. At the beginning of the new cycle I feel energetic and powerful.

The hormonal cycle is a normal part of life and it doesn't affect me in the extent of incapacitating me. The hardships of personal life are a normal matter too. Of course sometimes those hardships are the trigger to a low-season, especially if there are many problems adding up. But if the low continues and starts to incapacitate, there's a problem.

What I realized when writing the diary, was that my ups and lows might be an independent cycle. Sometimes the downs are triggered by something, sometimes they just appear out of nowhere. Getting up from a low takes time and there's not much I can do about it, except rest. During a low I'm able to perform the normal tasks of life, work and house keeping, but I don't have the energy to socialize or to create anything new. On the contrary, when at the highest point, there's no stopping me. New ideas form in my head, new projects start, old ones keep going at a steady pace.

The cycle is manifest not only in creativity but also in my emotional state. It's quite obvious: When up, I'm joyful, energetic, even restless. When down, I'm depressed and not able to enjoy much of anything. It's starting to sound like manic-depression, or bi-polar disorder... But I don't think it's that serious for me, at least not yet. What worries me though, is that the low- periods seem to last longer than before, and longer every time.

 I've been in the low for a long time now, and an all time low at that. But gradually I'm seeing signs of liberation. Some new ideas, some rays of sun light, some inspiration from friends and colleagues. I think I'm getting there...

It's my keyboard, Korg Trinity