So yeah I just decided to write. Not because I’m having some block, but because I like it.

Sure, if I did a song or a video, it could have more reach but I’m not ready for that just right now. I like writing for getting it all out. Business has just gone into overdrive, and everything has switched around again. It’s actually easier for me to make money than it is to make art.

auckland pirate

Im thinking the pirate could feed in. The pirate could be a metaphor.

I could also build a pirate ship out of a shopping cart. I could be a hipster pirate that cruises around. Jumping in and out of character from pirate matty to lord jonathon to just me.

But I’ll look for treasure and have adventures and kiddies and hipster parents can enjoy.

And then back to your scheduled reality check point. maybe one episode a month. The pirate intro in the rctv2 episode, and then off on a pirate thing that is very much pirate matty but i can do an episode like rctv2.1 Pirate Matty. Pirate Matty adventures can be little offshoots. Because they don’t have a song it’s just random pirate stuff.

Which is maybe metaphor laden, looking for treasure, in an ocean, then transfering over to a whole lord jonathon special. Maybe Lord jonathon is Pirate Matty’s good twin?

Anyway it’s the next day, I’ve done my pirate adventure for the day and their is another tomorrow.

I’m glad I’ve got a more long term plans for the pirate thing, and I like it, I think it’s a nice little metaphor, the dress up pirate in his shopping trolley pirate ship lost in the big bad worlds of marketing and bass culture.

To me all roads now lead to my agency and my art.

Oh but Auckland, even on a saturday your roads are jammed with lifeless breeding units, mobile human factory farms looking for their prescribed contentment. It’s like as you get older, your feelings are no longer mysterious.

I knew when I was 19 of a feeling that I came to learn was the essence of senesence, of time passing, of passage, the feeling of the passenger, I just didn’t know it. I knew when I was 18, it was the highest I’d climb on a certain mountain, thus my obsession and fetish for “quarterback culture”, that americana thing, how much better can it be to be 18 and have gorgeous young teenage girls fantasizing about you, when you’re really just a kid, it’s it’s own little fantasy world as much as playing indiana jones 10 years previous.

And I guess that’s the crushing anxiety and pressure teens face. They know this is their time. They don’t know, but they sense, like I did, the crushing angst of knowing the die is cast.

you’re a king, forever. Like I said to a gorgeous honey once, some of us have gifts. Most have nothing. Be thankful.

That’s the story, the lows and the highs. It’s not a good story if it’s just about me, and how my business does well, and then my music goes great and I get heaps of chicks. That’s not interesting, there’s no dramatic dynamic.

I think the more video I do eventually, I will build a strong brand to launch my agency on, but ultimately, it won’t be worth much to extend my art into an agency if I can’t really use my art to get through to . . . something, to connect with a vibe.

I guess I see a way to build on what I’ve got, feeding all elements of pirates, video, DJing, into an agency, it’s all about the convergence into one solid concept, that can be worked meticulously.

I don’t know if I’ll be known as a writer, or know as a DJ and producer, but I’ll be doing my thing.

You can’t really argue with the peacocking power of a pirate. The ladies aren’t going to ignore you walking round dressed as a pirate. I was keen as also. I’m just running my business, running round as a pirate, running up the videos and what not, what’s next girl?

I just want to know where the underground is at. Where is the dream of the teenager?

I ask myself if I would swap my money now for that hope. Would I swap back? Or is it alright to know now? Is alright to have your money in your pocket, your sweet ride, all of that?

It’s not even about money, it’s that I done it. I’m still the person who did it, even I lost it all. That’s why the new challenges fill my vision, where are the incredible girls, and where is the underground where the cutting edge vibes are at? That’s what we want.

you’re a king, forever. Like I said to a gorgeous honey once, some of us have gifts. Most have nothing. Be thankful.

From everything I read and generally observe, you’re going to need to act like your happy and confident most of the time to get anywhere in life.

Well to get ahead, to get clear of the pack. I guess that’s the point, if you really want to get ahead of the pack, if that’s an important enough goal for you, then you’re better off to slap on a smile and get on with it.

But what a torment really, to be or not to be, that is the question. You’ve actually got to pretend you’re feeling positive and confident even if you’re not otherwise people will desert you, not trust you, be that much more likely to do you over and dump you in a second.

It’s risky to feel anxious and depressed because no one will want to know you and you’ll just be compounding the situation.

Is that why we have a world full of people willing to believe anything that looks like it offers something more, and so many fake crap artists going at it, pushing their half baked nonsense on the world, desperate for even car crash attention just because people are so afraid of being alone and having to make a decision for themselves.

It’s so risky and dangerous to be out on a limb, so we huddle together like sheep, our brains sensing the nature of selection in favour of not being wrong.

So you play the game. Whether you’re better for it we can only assume.

Where does this weakness and doubt spring from? That’s what makes me ask, do I have to go out and pretend I’m destined to effortlessly dominate, or shall I just quietly fall by the way to get bulldozed by history?

What is the best outcome, for those lucky enough to choose? That’s what I often think, I choose not to do the things that I would like to think I could to, because I’m too busy internalizing and overthinking.

It just seems like it would be a lot of work to be rich and have heaps of honeys and be super talented as well, and you might still be unsatisfied. You might be crestfallen for having come up short.

But then I see all messed up people wandering around sadly, I mean I’m sure they’re doing fine but I look at them glad to not have their life but all the same not really having much to be thankful for myself in terms of feeling like I’m completely fulfilled in what I do. I don’t know what that is.

I see that they’re happy to lay down and accept their fate, whereas I am not. They’re happy with what they’ve got, and I’m not. So who’s the real achiever?

Maybe this all just indicates how concerned and afraid and anxious I am about becoming a featureless middle aged average person. Maybe that’s an interesting theme to explore, trying to remain hip and hang onto what was important about that when facing this wall of mediocrity baring down on you that will shrivel and eventually destroy you.

But there’s nothing to be gained from not hopelessly believing everything is fine and you can achieve anything.

The pessimist knows more, but the optimist can do more.

The wise loser or the ignorant winner?

To the winner the spoils, the hollow victory of feeling like it doesn’t really matter.

To the pessimist the spectators gaze, removed, deprived, victimised.

Which is better off?

Once, I did music that I still think could be important, not majorly, but locally. When local guys do local stuff and it’s vital it is important. I feel that way, that my music has to be part of what’s going in the city right now.

I want to be part of the city, I want to be part of what’s happening right now, that’s why I make beats.

You can always talk, and I’m thankful for that but maybe one day, no one will listen.

But for now, as long as I accept that I am Auckland, I must continue.

I must recognise the vibe that that comes from, of old grey lynn, of old real vibes that exist from when it was important, those vibes don’t die specifically because there are young dudes who think that it matters.

As long as it matters, it matters.

Maybe carefully and delicately I incubate myself, I prepare for regeneration, perhaps in a weirdly literal way.

I return as a new generation.

But I thought the music I did, and I can do, was important locally in that it was worth doing. It was saying something I can’t quite articulate here about certain qualities and realities.

And as I mentioned in the last post, I must make my blog more serious, in terms of actually connecting with people because outside of that – well, none of the art I do will ever take on any further importance than what I ascribe to it.

And I won’t likely get any gigs out of this either.

But it is more serious if I really do do business and I really do play the game, and I really do make my beats and it’s part of one expression.

I chose business, and I chose to be what I am.

If that makes me less of a DJ or a producer then so be it.

But if it makes me better, then watch out.

People just want to connect with something that means something to them.

Compilations and stuff I did or was involved in, that was important, and parties too, and parties I went to when I was younger, they were important.

The future is a bubbling cauldron of millions of variables, a million people going about their lives, but one day those things will be that which is treasured in the past.

I can’t leave this existance without saying something of it.

I was young, and I was free. There was a depth to life, that was in the city. There were possibilities, there was hope.

But the young and the inexperienced, and the desperate and the demanding, they will have their lessons doled out. Their fate will be sealed, they will be instructed as their destiny unfurls, revealed only slowly in details to be pondered over endlessly as this momentum comes to a rest.

And I think again of those grabbing thoughtlessly for fame, youth, admiration – this story of the age, the tragic journey of the individual into the sunset of their evolutionary resting point.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, yo!

This is the story.

I realised it, it stirred in me, I struggled and sometimes managed to define it and understand it but it at times swirled around me uncontrollably, and so these are my attempts to control it.

I knew no better. All I had was a feeling and I wondered after it. But I know it, because I’ve seen and heard it in my work. That’s why I know I must dig deep to rediscover it.

I don’t believe it’s about just being young and stupid, maybe it is about comprehending a great power beyond yourself, the power of the world to shape your path.

What choice can you possibly make? What is wisdom when anything could happen?

Minute empires can rise and be crushed by hammer blows in seconds.

That is the power of the unwritten story.

That is the power of possibility.

There is something to be said of the people that want, and the things you find when searching for something else.

How do you express those feelings?

How do you express the possibility of youth? Or the is it just the viewpoint of understanding something more powerful could exist and be grasped at, that the possibilities of mystery and intrigue and adventure exist, not in some video game or the latest movie, but in real life.

Maybe it still presents the challenge that the dreams of younger man could one day become reality, or of a million stories that could be told, even if only dreamed, or of accepting that afterall, the world didn’t change, but you did.

Dark streets, secrets, journeys in your mind, moments lost and found, real or imagined, dreamed or forgotten.

Existentialism is a term applied to the work of a number of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, generally held that the focus of philosophical thought should be to deal with the conditions of existence of the individual person and their emotions, actions, responsibilities, and thoughts. The early 19th century philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, posthumously regarded as the father of existentialism, maintained that the individual is solely responsible for giving their own life meaning and living that life passionately and sincerely, in spite of many existential obstacles and distractions including despair, angst, absurdity, alienation, and boredom.

Subsequent existential philosophers retain the emphasis on the individual, but differ, in varying degrees, on how one achieves and what constitutes a fulfilling life, what obstacles must be overcome, and what external and internal factors are involved, including the potential consequences of the existence or non-existence of God. Many existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophy, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience.[14][15] Existentialism became fashionable in the post-World War years as a way to reassert the importance of human individuality and freedom.

Examples include:

* Buddha’s teachings
* Saint Augustine in his Confessions
* Mulla Sadra’s transcendent theosophy
* William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain knowledge must precede every action. The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. … I certainly do not deny that I still recognize an imperative of knowledge and that through it one can work upon men, but it must be taken up into my life, and that is what I now recognize as the most important thing.
—Søren Kierkegaard,

Like Pascal, they were interested in people’s quiet struggle with the apparent meaninglessness of life and the use of diversion to escape from boredom. Unlike Pascal, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche also considered the role of making free choices, particularly regarding fundamental values and beliefs, and how such choices change the nature and identity of the chooser.

These idealized individuals invent their own values and create the very terms under which they excel. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were also precursors to other intellectual movements, including postmodernism, nihilism, and various strands of psychology.

Unamuno rejected systematic philosophy in favor of the individual’s quest for faith. He retained a sense of the tragic, even absurd nature of the quest, symbolized by his enduring interest in Cervantes’ fictional character Don Quixote. Another Spanish thinker, Ortega y Gasset, writing in 1914, held that the human existence must always be defined as the individual person combined with the concrete circumstances of his life: “Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia” (“I am myself and my circumstances”). Sartre likewise believed that human existence is not an abstract matter, but is always situated (“en situación”).

To the extent the individual human being lives in the objective world, he is estranged from authentic spiritual freedom. “Man” is not to be interpreted naturalistically, but as a being created in God’s image, an originator of free, creative acts.

Existentialist thinkers focus on the question of concrete human existence and the conditions of this existence rather than hypothesizing a human essence, stressing that the human essence is determined through life choices. However, even though the concrete individual existence must have priority in existentialism, certain conditions are commonly held to be “endemic” to human existence.

What these conditions are is better understood in light of the meaning of the word “existence,” which comes from the Latin “existere,” meaning “to stand out.” Man exists in a state of distance from the world that he nonetheless remains in the midst of. This distance is what enables man to project meaning into the disinterested world of in-itselfs. This projected meaning remains fragile, constantly facing breakdown for any reason — from a tragedy to a particularly insightful moment. In such a breakdown, we are put face to face with the naked meaninglessness of the world, and the results can be devastating.

It is in relation to the concept of the devastating awareness of meaninglessness that Albert Camus claimed that “there is only one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide” in his The Myth of Sisyphus. Although “prescriptions” against the possibly deleterious consequences of these kinds of encounters vary, from Kierkegaard’s religious “stage” to Camus’ insistence on persevering in spite of absurdity, the concern with helping people avoid living their lives in ways that put them in the perpetual danger of having everything meaningful break down is common to most existentialist philosophers. The possibility of having everything meaningful break down poses a threat of quietism, which is inherently against the existentialist philosophy.

A central proposition of existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which means that the actual life of the individual is what constitutes what could be called his or her “essence” instead of there being a predetermined essence that defines what it is to be a human. Thus, the human being – through his consciousness – creates his own values and determines a meaning to his life.

It is often claimed in this context that a person defines themselves, which is often perceived as stating that they can “wish” to be something — anything, a bird, for instance — and then be it. According to most existentialist philosophers, however, this would constitute an inauthentic existence. Instead, the phrase should be taken to say that the person is (1) defined only insofar as he or she acts and (2) that he or she is responsible for his or her actions. For example, someone who acts cruelly towards other people is, by that act, defined as a cruel person. Furthermore, by this action of cruelty such persons are themselves responsible for their new identity (a cruel person). This is as opposed to their genes, or ‘human nature’, bearing the blame.

Angst, sometimes called dread, anxiety or even anguish is a term that is common to many existentialist thinkers. It is generally held to be the experience of human freedom and responsibility. The archetypal example is the experience one has when standing on a cliff where one not only fears falling off it, but also dreads the possibility of throwing oneself off. In this experience that “nothing is holding me back”, one senses the lack of anything that predetermines one to either throw oneself off or to stand still, and one experiences one’s own freedom.

It can also be seen in relation to the previous point how angst is before nothing, and this is what sets it apart from fear which has an object. While in the case of fear, one can take definitive measures to remove the object of fear, in the case of angst, no such “constructive” measures are possible. The use of the word “nothing” in this context relates both to the inherent insecurity about the consequences of one’s actions, and to the fact that, in experiencing one’s freedom as angst, one also realizes that one will be fully responsible for these consequences; there is no thing in a person (their genes, for instance) that acts in their stead, and that they can “blame” if something goes wrong.

Not every choice is perceived as having dreadful possible consequences (and, it can be claimed, human lives would be unbearable if every choice facilitated dread), but that doesn’t change the fact that freedom remains a condition of every action.

A concept closely related to freedom is that of facticity, a concept defined by Sartre in Being and Nothingness as that “in-itself” of which humans are in the mode of not being. This can be more easily understood when considering it in relation to the temporal dimension of past: One’s past is what one is in the sense that it co-constitutes him (or her). However, to say that one is only one’s past would be to ignore a large part of reality (the present and the future) while saying that one’s past is only what one was in a way that would entirely detach it from them now. A denial of one’s own concrete past constitutes an inauthentic lifestyle, and the same goes for all other kinds of facticity (having a body (e.g. one that doesn’t allow a person to run faster than the speed of sound), identity, values, etc.).

Facticity is both a limitation and a condition of freedom. It is a limitation in that a large part of one’s facticity consists of things one couldn’t have chosen (birthplace, etc.), but a condition in the sense that one’s values most likely will depend on it. However, even though one’s facticity is “set in stone” (as being past, for instance), it cannot determine a person: The value ascribed to one’s facticity is still ascribed to it freely by that person. As an example, consider two men, one of whom has no memory of his past and the other remembers everything. They have both committed many crimes, but the first man, knowing nothing about this, leads a rather normal life while the second man, feeling trapped by his own past, continues a life of crime, blaming his own past for “trapping” him in this life. There is nothing essential about his committing crimes, but he ascribes this meaning to his past.

However, to disregard one’s facticity when one, in the continual process of self-making, projects oneself into the future, would be to put oneself in denial of oneself, and would thus be inauthentic. In other words, the origin of one’s projection will still have to be one’s facticity, although in the mode of not being it (essentially). Another aspect of facticity is that it entails angst, both in the sense that freedom “produces” angst when limited by facticity, and in the sense that the lack of the possibility of having facticity to “step in” for one to take responsibility for something one has done also produces angst.

The theme of authentic existence is common to many existentialist thinkers. It is often taken to mean that one has to “find oneself” and then live in accordance with this self. A common misunderstanding is that the self is something one can find if one looks hard enough, that one’s true self is substantial.

What is meant by authenticity is that in acting, one should act as oneself, not as One acts or as one’s genes or any other essence require. The authentic act is one that is in accordance with one’s freedom. Of course, as a condition of freedom is facticity, this includes one’s facticity, but not to the degree that this facticity can in any way determine one’s choices (in the sense that one could then blame one’s background for making the choice one made). The role of facticity in relation to authenticity involves letting one’s actual values come into play when one makes a choice (instead of, like Kierkegaard’s Aesthete, “choosing” randomly), so that one also takes responsibility for the act instead of choosing either-or without allowing the options to have different values.

In contrast to this, the inauthentic is the denial to live in accordance with one’s freedom. This can take many forms, from pretending choices are meaningless or random, through convincing oneself that some form of determinism is true, to a sort of “mimicry” where one acts as “One should.” How “One” should act is often determined by an image one has of how one such as oneself (say, a bank manager) acts. This image usually corresponds to some sort of social norm, but this does not mean that all acting in accordance with social norms is inauthentic: The main point is the attitude one takes to one’s own freedom and responsibility, and the extent to which one acts in accordance with this freedom.

Commonly defined as a loss of hope,[61] Despair in existentialism is more specifically related to the reaction to a breakdown in one or more of the “pillars” of one’s self or identity. If one is invested in being a particular thing, a waiter or an “upstanding citizen,” for example, and one finds oneself in a situation in which one has done something or had something happen to oneself that compromises this being-thing, one would normally find oneself in a state of despair, a hopeless state. An athlete who loses his legs in an accident may despair if he has nothing to “fall back on,” for instance. One is confronted with the irreality of what one had taken to be one’s self.

What sets the existentialist notion of despair apart from the dictionary definition is that existentialist despair is a state one is in even when one isn’t overtly in despair: As long as one has based one’s identity on such pillars so that one is vulnerable to having one’s world break down, one is considered to be in perpetual despair. And as, in Sartrean terms, there is no human essence based in reality from which to constitute one’s sense of identity, despair is a truly human condition. As Kierkegaard defines it in his Either/or: “Any life-view with a condition outside it is despair.”[62] In other words, it is possible to be in despair without despairing.

The Other (when written with a capital “o”) is a concept more properly belonging to phenomenology and its account of intersubjectivity. However, the concept has seen widespread use in existentialist writings, and the conclusions drawn from it differ slightly from the phenomenological accounts. The experience of the Other is the experience of another free subject who inhabits the same world as a person does. In its most basic form, it is this experience of the Other that constitutes intersubjectivity and objectivity. To clarify, when one experiences someone else, and this Other person experiences the world (the same world that a person experiences), only from “over there”, the world itself is constituted as objective in that it is something that is “there” as identical for both of the subjects; a person experiences the other person as experiencing the same as them. This experience of the Other’s look is what is termed the Look (sometimes the Gaze).

While this experience, in its basic phenomenological sense, constitutes the world as objective, and oneself as objectively existing subjectivity (one experiences oneself as seen in the Other’s Look in precisely the same way that one experiences the Other as seen by them, as subjectivity), in existentialism, it also acts as a kind of limitation of one’s freedom. This is because the Look tends to objectify what it sees. As such, when one experiences oneself in the Look, one doesn’t experience oneself as nothing (no thing), but as something. Sartre’s own example of a man peeping at someone through a keyhole can help clarify this: at first, this man is entirely caught up in the situation he is in; he is in a pre-reflexive state where his entire consciousness is directed at what goes on in the room. Suddenly, he hears a creaking floorboard behind him, and he becomes aware of himself as seen by the Other. He is thus filled with shame for he perceives himself as he would perceive someone else doing what he was doing, as a Peeping Tom. The Look is then co-constitutive of one’s facticity.

Another characteristic feature of the Look is that no Other really needs to have been there: It is quite possible that the creaking floorboard was nothing but the movement of an old house; the Look isn’t some kind of mystical telepathic experience of the actual way the other sees one (there may also have been someone there, but he could have not noticed that the person was there). It is only one’s perception of the way another might perceive them.

The rejection of reason as the source of meaning is a common theme of existentialist thought, as is the focus on the feelings of anxiety and dread that we feel in the face of our own radical freedom and our awareness of death. Kierkegaard saw strong rationality as a mechanism humans use to counter their existential anxiety, their fear of being in the world: “If I can believe that I am rational and everyone else is rational then I have nothing to fear and no reason to feel anxious about being free.”[citation needed] However, Kierkegaard advocated rationality as means to interact with the objective world (e.g. in the natural sciences), but when it comes to existential problems, reason is insufficient: “Human reason has boundaries”.

So I’m just going about my business, anxious as hell because basically, I’m not raking in the dough like I have in recent times past, when I run out of gas, basically because I’m to stressed and anxious about my business, I’m forgetting/neglecting to put any damn gas in my BMW.

Anyway so this Tongan mum with a car full of kids stops to give me a ride to the gas station and back.

It kind of buzzes me out because, well, here I am in my gassed out black BMW, with tints and 17″ rims – out of gas simply because I’m too stressed on my business because I’m not making enough money, as in, more money than everybody else.

She has 3 kids and her whole family probably lives on what I make even in a shitty week for me like this one, and I’m allowing my perceived cash problems to dominate me completely, while she’s happy to help me when she sees me walking through a poor neighbourhood with a gas can.

It was a dickens moment where I felt like kind of dick to be the rich idiot who doesn’t have a clue. Is that the way to be? Is that the kiwi way to be, driving round self obsessing because I’m not in the top 5% of earners?

That’s what it comes down to, my priorities are messed up, at most of my anguish comes from knowing there’s a better way but it just doesn’t seem to be there for me.

I think of people who say “Money isn’t Everything” but it’s always people who wouldn’t know, and they’re judging me.

That’s the thing, people and their morals, are so hypocritical. They don’t want to see me grow as an individual, they just want to derail my confidence as I comes toot tootin by on my money train.

But it doesn’t change the fact that all that exists, it’s there, all the good stuff. Money isn’t good stuff but it sure as hell protects you from bad stuff.

I wanted to make a million dollars, I will, but y’know before I’m actually old.

While I’m young enough to still feel young.

Now I’m at least trying to teach myself to feel young now, while I still am young. Money is so dependable though, you can count it, it’s actually there. A great feeling can just disappear and it’s gone, in fact, it always does.

I guess that’s why music tries to capture moments and feelings, because they’re so hard to control and contain.

A lot of other people are accepting of their lives. I’m not very accepting of my life, I can’ really settle, I always want more.

I liked making lots of money though, it made me feel important. That’s the issue, my music is not important enough. No one cares. No one really cares about my money I guess, but realistically if you guage the effect it far outweighs music, but then I never really reached the threshhold where people were really aware of me in music or business.

But it was always about resources. Everything I want to do creatively costs money, especially where I’ve got with my music, y’know, no one will take my level of audio production values seriously, me included. It costs money to fix problems, I’ve always said that.

Money isn’t everything, but money fixes problems.

But mainly it’s time, and it’s almost as if it’s right under my nose. I just have to accept my situation and I’ll have it all, I’ll have room to rediscover lost vibes. Take my thing forward. Most of the ideas I come up with for videos don’t really cost a lot that’s part of the dynamic, the trajectory I’m trying to create with it.

What about the good stuff, what about the human touch? Well it’s obviously about dealing with myself. Maybe I need to be proud to be normal and truly understand that money isn’t everything, because when people genuinely care, it’s a wonderful thing. I don’t know, white people don’t seem to care about one another.

Hierarchies suck.

But anyway, if I can embrace my normal, and do my work and pay my bills and whatever, then maybe that has to be enough to reach for new creativity and community.

Mystical universe thingeemajiggy umm yeah my list, basically.

I had something clever to say but psssht gone, sorry, but yeah, was excited about my list.

You can buy some stuff. Buy it, and I make money. I just thought about it, y’know, my list, all these ideas, I had some ideas about how it was going to play, but anyway, first my stuff which is all like, music marketing that if you buy it I get money, which  I like:

The new music economy

music marketing manifesto

reachfame database

Djing + Success

How to sell music online

record label music business plan

A to Z of music licensing

music career masters

run a hip hop label

buskers bible

So now that’s over, yeah it was going play like this:

I had to write something that would appeal to music fans, online marketing people and anybody else who was on a romantech vibe. It had to be giving on many levels. A free report? What would I report? I’d need a big bloody package!

In good time. In the meantime, yes well, I’m excited about a list. Maybe I’ll just go listcore. I’ll just purely be list because that’s where the money is at.

I could play secret games, as well. Like, if something was extra special, you’d have to play a secret game to get the info.

It’s hard to imagine, but the thing is doctor, it’ll never work otherwise. Maybe debrand it all together? Use 3rd person stuff? Be wilfully wiley. So people don’t know where you’re coming from, only where they’re at. If you get me.

They’re drawn in, they have to be.

Like, check it, newsletter starts:

“New Romantech mixtape . . .

“Matt Turner works at kurb promotions where he often . . .

“In the latest episode of Reality Compound”

Basically write it in the style of the writer presuming incorrectly that the reader is familiar with the characters when it should be read as if you’d never heard of those people.

Especially if you’re cold cutting into some ramble then flow into a specific character area so the brand identity is really flowing.

Maybe I should give it an ironic stupid name like “chat with matt” – it already says “sign up for Matt’s newsletter” it is getting prettttty murky in terms of calling out the brand, like the newsletter is always seperate.

Yeah I just read my first newsletter, it’s not edgy enough.

It’s too ho hum, and probably too long.

It was all about having a newsletter, and it was all about me. Forget me, the newsletter needs to be for the fans. I’m indulgent enough as it is on here, the newlsetter can be a non indulgent space where it’s all about giving.

It’s like wrestling in the 80’s, the tv weeknight shows were just boring vehicles for the big match up specials where the big wrestlers actually did stuff like royal rumble and that.

I could do a free report on “how to be awesome”. Seriously. Not that I’m awesome but I could pretty much guess how. In fact I think I’m going to start working on it now.

So I’m going to keep writing. It’s part of my plan to kickstart my creativity again, while of course building up the momentum online that doing lots of writing tends to do.

Yesterday I was talking about how I am I totally going on a new independent direction – I’m not really discussing the circumstances around that, but I am saying I probably left it too long, but at least I have the luxury of being almost certain it’s the right thing, despite the challenges faced.

Man, I’m just loving being in my own space and doing my own thing. Yesterday I jumped straight into talking about carrying over short term goals for Microscope and the Haunted Garden concept, but there’s more stuff to be re-evaluated and examined.

I’m glad I’ve got ideas to get on with, I’m glad if I just pay to have my songs engineered, I’m glad if giving up is not an option even if I’m not really young and happening anymore, that my chance to be a young and happening producer with impact because I’m all so fresh and all that is over, it doesn’t mean I automatically have to give up, because I can’t give up, I just have to find new ways of negotiating the terrain.

Again the narrative comes into it because if I wasn’t a born natural in creating inspirational art, what led me to this point? Anything good that I produce now, if I even manage to do that, has to do with a long voyage of learning and analysis and calibration and course correction.

A lot of people wont care about that, and a lot of what I did in the past wasn’t really objectively that important, but its still part of the story and thats a major theme of the haunted garden. That unseen memories and ghosts keep calling you back. There is no future because its all echoes of the past ringing in your ears with each step forward you take.

So I’ll  be working on hauned garden and microscope, and as I say with this blog, I want to learn to take stronger ideas forward with my newsletter and my videos. Some of the silliness of reality compound may be lost.

I want to do things, and I want to document them. I want to start not a band, but a team of long term collaborators. I’ll be doing Microscope and Haunted Garden regardless  but I also might be inspired to get guitarists and singers and maybe even keyboardists on board for collaborations which are like some crazy Indie/Dubstep/Electro fusion. “Mature Fusion” I thought of today, but maybe with a solid hipster indicator, because you have to have some grasp on the kind of fusion that most modern alternative bands are creating. I don’t really get it, except that it seems to work, unlike in the past where most fusions sounded really bad.

MATURE FUSION / HIPSTER LEANINGS

Indie / Dubstep / Electro / Soul / Pop

GUITARISTS and SINGERS SOUGHT:

as LONG TERM COLLABORATORS for a very contemporary, 21st century music project. Hard working musicians focused on productivity are requested for this open ended project.

Maybe it’s about being in a band, maybe it’s about making a video about meeting other creative people and finding out their ideas, making some music with them as a soundtrack to the video.

Maybe even if I’m old or a businessman, it won’t matter, because I do my music and I do videos and maybe if I do a newsletter it will make sense but I’m not quite sure how yet, that’s why and what I’m writing about right now.

Going on about something being meaningful, and here’s a tip to make monney from your website. That doesn’t sound like it won’t be jarring in a newsletter so I guess I have to work it out. It’s just like the website.

The Romantech website will be a strange trail, a net, an attempt to capture all these variable strains from the past. The newsletter is about turning what I know into something that can functionally help people whether they’re into music or marketing or whatever.

Though, realistically, it will mainly be musicians with marketing leanings and marketing people with hip music leanings who probably get on my vibe. It’s a hard one, and perhaps the idea of doing a newsletter is actually hardest of all.

My first one was going to be about the journey forward from myspace as the deep catalyst for so much I enjoy and lok back with fondness now.

I want to tour again, I just don’t know how it’ll come together. It probably won’t be short circuit, but it probably won’t be matt’s intrepid journey. It’ll be a weird combo.

I think the mian point really is to get to work, and try and get back that myspace vibe where there’s actually people out there responding to what I’m trying to do. Once I start learning more about what the people like what I’m doing actually like about what I do, the more I can manifest something of value to people that will carry me forward in a way that I can be satisfied doing my own thing in a way that other people appreciate.

But right now, my issue is with this mix, it’s a continuum of the Dojo Inspectors issue, about artistic integrity, I’m sitting here saying how can you put out a new mix?

I should be slapped with a fish. What happened to “Tough Love”? What happened to that mixtape project you filthy dog?

Well, I recorded 80% of it I just wanted to re-record the last 3 mixes where I messed one right up. And um yeah. That was months ago now. like I dunno, it’s not fresh, but I gotta finish because most of the work is done, I just cant really push it.

It’s like dojo inspectors, we can’t really make a big deal about it. Just gotta finish it, and just put it up there, put it down to experience, put it round the back for people to see. I dunno.

Get it done, forget about it. Move on. If anyone cares then it’s worth the effort. If someone wants to listen to 3 of my mixes, why not 4?

So I should finish? I’m trying to remember how I ended it, uh whats the relationship between the mixes?

Well uh tough love is the official archive mix for 2009 which you can dowload from the archives, but the new mix will be the new mix, with it’s own all new new thing going on.

Tough love will be there. You’ll be able to download it and read about it’s archive status, and perhaps if there are more romantech CD sets, there will be a tough love CD with the official tough love art.

I guess no one will remember tough love, much like gentleman caller, it will be one for the fans. For the hardcore. The devotees. The deranged cultists.

I’m not sure about the playlist surely I’d try and slip a random movement track in somewhere?

Tough love playlist:

luv + haight (matrix remix)

all around – Break

feelings (nu:tone remix

skylarking – visionary?

tear you down – brookes brothers

Cant get enough – chase and status

Floor14 – State of Mind

zero gravity – Metrik

dont look back – Agent Alvin

sound was golden – Inside Info

under the sun – Muffler

blue magic – DJ SS remix ft Tali

String city – Lenzman

ghetto blues – Zyon Base

with you – electrosoul system

Far From Down To Earth – Bionic1

Aware – Er.ic

Tell me – Specific

Moanin – The Funktastics

So excited – Cutworks

Toy Town – Logistics

Ghost car – Rregula

Polygon – Shock One

Asylum – Ram Trilogy

We all – Blame remix

Sunship – SPY

Afraid of Jazz – madmen+poets – Lenzman remix (one of my top tunes of the year, wicked!)

6am – Donnie Dubson

soul patrol – Lenzman Remix

alibi -BreaK Remix

out of nowhere – break

The need of being alone – bungle

The problem is I wanted to use the tear you down and polygon mixes on my new years cd because I’ll be dropping lots of big tunes so the same mix combos will feature on 2 mixes from this year might be a bit um err for the supposed fans who are gonna download both but oh well, hey that’s how I roll.

It’s about getting into the habits of getting this shit out there and actually doing it!

But yeah um concept . . . well it’s new years and we’re going away on another excursion to the detonate festival, and the mix is quite hard, there’s lots of melody but not so much straight up liquid. So yeah definitely a more party vibe.

I’ll come up with something suitable, I’m sure

Might call it tough bickies, I like it, 1 for tough love that never was, and 2 for all the tough bickies i’ve eaten in the last couple of months.

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Okay today I am now happy again after before, when I was sad.

I am happy because although I missed my Beat Dungeon show I still managed to get in a good 4 hours mixing today, i’ll be honest that’ll be the longest I spent mixing in years. Most of my ideas for the detonate festival we’re playing for new years in a few days are sorted, and I’m actually keen to lay down another mix, but I have conflicted emotions on that subject.

Missed the show due to being locked out and having basically no patience for endless codes and security measures, I just did what I always do, hung around for 15 minutes and then buggered off.

Is that important?And I saw some of the 100 best videos of the decade, including The Mint Chicks and Fat Freddy’s and as usual felt inadequate about not being established.

Sheesh, there’s always something

But that’s what I like about happy smiling face feelings because they make you forget about some problem that you were having before.

What was that problem? I don’t know, there was the redhead model and ambrozia, but bizarrely, I don’t even care because of the music situation, I haven’t even got back to either of them. Two hot chicks both wanting and expecting to have an interaction, but I’m all sitting here because I wasn’t happy about the vibe around my art.

This Dojo Inspectors thing is depressing the hell out of me, everytime I get a musical vibe, I remember that Dojo Inspectors is basically, nothings happening, there’s nothing I can do, I just feel totally powerless. And makes me angry, and I feel saying well forget it, forget that.

If I can’t put out an album without all these problems, then I won’t, i’ll do something else. I’ll chase girls and work on my content. But isn’t it so typical? It’s too typical. Not 1 but 2 hot girls, and all of sudden I’m all like, too concerned about my artistic problems to care . . .

See this is why I write this damn blog. Because how else would I have come to realise I am a really negative person, as in, I tend to zero in on shit that I’m not happy about . . . you could say it’s a problem solving, improving ideal . . .

Mine eyes have seen the glory. I know it exists and I know it’s within my grasp, I just need to carry it home. That should be my positive affirmation so I can like totally self actualise and stuff.

But yeah, how am I supposed to put up with not having the things that are there, that I know I can have. That’s why I’m a negative bastard.

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Well i’ve just gone and got my shit like totally spec’d up.

Y’know, though the subtleties may not necessarily come through, a lot of frustration I’m experiencing is driven by the fact that I actually feel like I’m closer than ever to the things I’m striving for, which is not about this kind of girl or a tune that makes people notice because those may be goals but they’re end goals, they’re not goals that a moving forward to greater aims.

Or whatever I don’t know I’m just on my new laptop, got another new camera as well, don’t, just don’t talk to me about it alright it’s like this, I’m not just going to lurk cowering in a corner wondering of possibilities and what might be, deep down I’m pushed to drive forward, to leap forward and man the turrets and ready the cannons and hoist the main sail and whatever else, ship shape and bristol fashion, ready to sail boldly forth.

New technology means new capability and capacity. But it’s all about critical amounts of capacity and capability, I had to always asked how much my life would really change if I could write beats and work anywhere I liked, I had to ask if it was just some fantasy like a lot of people have where they’re at the local cafe supping their espresso and doodle dooing on their laptop like a tosser.

Well I got sick of asking and wondering because all I was thinking was well . . . what if being able to do y’know a good 80% of the stuff I do from anywhere, totally changed my life, totally changed what was open to me?

I can talk to clients

I can do basic online tasks

I can talk to employees and suppliers

I can write beats

I can do photoshop (once I find my copy to put on here)

And once I get skype I can communicate by calling people up on my skype receiver..

And as I just said to my mate here who commented how happy I look with my new laptop, ahem – mobile PC – I’m sitting up straight with appropriate posture here for the first time in 3 weeks since I left my desk at my office! New possibilities with mobile realities yo!

What if continuing to add to my freetime will just blow up into a increasingly critical mass of free time and opportunity that will allow new and unexpected directions and creativity to arise?

That’s what it’s all about. I don’t even have to go home to do my work, I can go anywhere, talk to anyone. I can get up, have a shower and walk out the door with my laptop ready to get it on at the caf, get the news, get my emails answered, follow up anything I need to know online, and well then what?

Chill somewhere on a vibe putting down a beat? Go to the spot where the vibes are at or where other game is on the line and stalk out my prey, knowing that any pressing business will come to my attention.

I imagine myself sending emails and dropping beats sitting on the bedroom floor of some girl I met the night before, y’know full on rock’n roll geek styles. Kicked back in the back seat of my beamer, droppin down the knowledge.

Out on the balcony of my place here overlooking k rd, leaning into the cacophonic soulless k rd vibe on saturday night, feasting off them and shitting out beats on their heads below.

I also have a new camera to ensure I have absolutely no excuses no to carry forth with my youtube business. With the laptop I grabbed it because I had to know that if suddenly the constant pull of going home to check my emails for new business developments and the ability to write beats anywhere without being caccooned at home would change my life.

With the camera I just got completely fed up dreaming about this youtube shit when it’s been going on for 4 years now, that I wanted to get on youtube and get my thing down. I actually checked out the best of Jono’s New Show last night and I was impressed, but strangely, unthreatened. It wasn’t incredible but it wasn’t bad either.

But . . . how much effort does it take to do what they do, film crews, writers, production, there is no way they could maintain that standard if it was just a few people working on it, that’s why I’m not worried. I’m a long way from maintaining their standard but once I can get a tight operation there’s no reason why it shouldn’t flow on.

I don’t want to be on TV. My youtube thing is all about an extention of my art, I determined that writing drum’n bass was only onne way and probably not the best or only way to express my art.

But yeah, before we get carried away . . . I’m really excited about what my laptop will allow me to do, I can feel it. There are possibilities for me that are exciting because, there’s so much I want to do, so much I can do, but I could never risk the onward flow of my business and the need to create a space in which my art can be born, space to focus on my music and let it live.

But also work on making the video process one of flow also, I’ve experienced flow in music and know I can open it up, it’s just a matter of forcing these circumstances to work so that I can also produce video prolifically when the circumstances arise.

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