Ok it’s time for the Dojo Inspectors contingency. This Dojo Inspectors business is quickly becoming a farce.
I know thats sounds like I’m overreacting, that’s because I am, I was veering off onto mad full blown panic freak outs last week before the Rebound gig on Saturday was so poorly attended, I was staggered. Fortune, a fickle mistress indeed.
Well whatever, maybe one day I truly won’t care because sometimes gigs go off and sometimes they don’t, rather than being so foolish as to think ALL my gigs must go off because I’m all grown up, even the ones like Rebound we organise in 6 days and barely promote. I know this now, just like in recent years I’ve known that the late night babble of some young dickhead is leading nowhere. But I still partied after the gigs when I should have just gone home and turned in, and I will still worry about the gigs even though there’s no point . . . and besides.
I need to let my promoting be incidental to my artistry here, y’know. A gig doesn’t matter. a gig is over. Art is a step forward in journey into meaning. Dude.
Look, the most important is that the material is good. whether or not every party flies or die it’s well, not essential.
But for the Dojo Inspectors it may be time for operation white flag, for the Thelma and Louise ending.
Well I guess it’s not that bad but needless to say I’m pretty disappointed to find myself in the mire again with everything out of control and my brain peeling back. Last week was out of control, the failed gig was a bad nightmare, probably because I wanted to believe that fu on a saturday night was bulletproof. 6 day lead and no promo or whatever. But this week when Johns computer lappy blew up and my back up box turned out to have no sound capablility well . . . well I’ve been in capitualtion.
Business has been on the backburner for weeks now and is getting decidedly swampy – first it was awash, now it’s more of a bog, but it’s cool, it’s happened enough times. Everything gets out of control, lose a couple of clients while needing to send in a clean up crew on a couple of jobs, not make as generous sums as I expected, land back on earth with a few scrapes and bruises and in a month or two it’ll be forgotten.
However, one good thing – I’m writing this in my new office, which is pretty sweet, I’m situated operating from a different, alternative loci, where I can create a different vibe. Kind of the thing I’d like to be marking with a video but we’re not there yet. I’m not ready for youtube just as I was not ready for Dojo Inspectors and patience and the ability to accept these things as they pass is the best way to maintain positive progress forward on these projects.
I am not ready, and it’s sad because I want to do my drum and bass and my youtube but I will just have to be patient and prepare diligently knowing that there is nothing that can stop me making my music and doing my video stuff if I continue to make progress toward it, and be motivated by it, to want to write and tell deep messages buried in the tracks or create challenges and strange narrative cacophonies on youtube.
The first contingency has already been launched. A 13 track mix of the main songs, which forms the main mid section of the mix.
On Friday I wrote:
“But I have come up with a plan which I’m actually pretty stoked about though you can read about it in teh dojo inspectors post previous to this one. Basically, so we don’t end up looking like dickheads we’re going to release a 13 track mix on the official release date and then release the 30 track mix later, in about a week or so.
That really buys some time, some much needed time. Likely time for me to waste agonizing over some issue but I think really the download, the music is the priority, we’ve got gigs coming out of our ears so . . . “
That’s at the point I convinced myself it was all okay and I guess I didn’t care and so I saved the post and forgot about it.
Then we had a crap nightmare gig, then, we had these computer problems which just withered me.
The 13 track mix was a good idea and in fact so good I do believe it was the right thing to do.
Release 13 tracks exclusively in the short term, just for the gig really, and replace this limited mix with the final and full 30 track mix probably within a week, at which point – I must underline – the real promotion of the mix as opposed to the gig begins.
Serious application of my marketing nous . . . or something. Well y’know, the CD’s – at least a thousand of them, the online ad campaigns and email sign ups, y’know the long game – that all opens up. The idea is to get people to listen to the music, to get it out there.
I talked to john about this – our goal is to give our music away free, with a slim chance that people will actually get in behind it, but with the real hope that we will be signed to a respected liquid funk drum and bass label. When that will be who knows. It might be next year, it might be 10 years. Will I stop writing drum and bass? I tend to doubt it, why give up? I mean, I’ve got to do it, I’ve got to make tunes, whether they’re that good or not. And if people want to hear them, and they like them, then good.
But mean time I just gotta say that putting out the 13 track mix is the best idea, but we got 3 days to make that happen. I didn’t do “tough love” I failed, we didn;t finish the full mix in time either, and we failed.
But who cares? No one even cares, if they want to hear it they can wait. There’s no point in these hype driven release campaigns anyway I should know that. It’s about the relentless build that goes on from here not just in ceaseless, rolling promotion but also a consistent series of releases.
If the gig goes shit becuase it’s the middle of exams, there’s tonnes on that weekend and we only spent $500 on the thing, then whatever. It’s about the damn mixtape being half decent and people hearing it, and we happen to be having a gig.
Who even knows, who cares if it’s ready or it’s not or if it even ever comes out. I mean I’m just saying, I’m not having a tantrum, I just want to remind myself don’t have to concern myself so stoically on this whole deal with the gig and the release of the mix.
I have one concern. That we have something on a CD we can give away to the people who show up and that if 150 actually do come, we can do somethign half decent with our music.
It’s of concern. But already I know that on Saturday it wont matter. Whatever happens wont matter and there’ll be no rest in the weeks to come perfecting this thing until it’s done to a presentable standard. But hey one day I’ll outgrow all this stuff – y’know thinking that these details matter, right?
And then we’ll do another mixtape or whatever next year and hopefully we will have learned. Hopefully if nothing else, then next time, we would have learned.
