So seth godin was saying this time if you don’t care what other people think, then you might be a narcissist?

I think he was saying if you’re a self indulgent person, you might just end up indulging yourself a little too much. Well we can’t argue there, that’s why we can’t be too unhappy with the footage we’ve kicked up now.

Funi to me is a genre that was popularized by the likes of sacha baron cohen and Lonely Island / Andy Samberg, and it’s just a titling of a concept I’ve played with before, this whole strand of amateurish DIY comedy for the youtube medium. There’s a real argument to plow here about art vs. entertainment.

Are you trying to say something or are you trying to get people to like you and get famous? I guess there are parameters there. On one hand you don’t want to lose the meaning in what you do, pandering to a dumbed down audience but on the other, you don’t want to be indulgent to the point of irrelevancy. I know it’s sounds old but you’re trying to keep it entertaining while preserving the message.

I could say, swim between the flags, don’t let your art become merely idiot fodder, mind numbing distraction, but at the same time don’t let it become so arty and personal that it can’t be accessed and enjoyed by an audience, but that’s what art is you get to decide what you want it to be.

But it could be something even more than that. If I could go be Ryan Gosling and be a respected hollywood actor and heart throb, I’d probably go do that. If I could go be subfocus, for example, a pretty popular drum and bass DJ who isn’t well regarded by “real” drum and bass DJ’s, I probably would, so the artist has to discover where they can make their contribution.

Even my old comrades State of Mind, I think their sound has suffered by trying to appeal to a bigger audience, but I could also say well if you want to take a look in the mirror it’s better than bumming around churning over ideas on a blog no one would read. This is what funi is about, this is doing youtube videos, making drum and bass specifically to work the niche, doing my marketing and stuff for the money, it’s doing something that counts because somebody gives a damn.

No one cares about this blog but what does it make it worth?

So whatever, what’s the video plan now? If we can get up, get on it and do more videos, we’re on the road. I got a feeling about this. I got a feeling that if I can keep it real and keep it consistent then people are going to notice my videos, right now I ‘ve got that awesome worn out feeling you get from having gone hard on a project, I was really intimidated by having to step up the energy, I did get tired, and I did think later that as I get older I just won’t have the same energy unless I get fit.

However . . . if I am doing stuff like this every weekend, if saturday is my movie making day then I would get fitter and I’m hoping my voice will get stronger in terms of not cracking and getting stretched after about an hour or so.

But point is, job got done, and if we were smart, we could have made it easier on ourselves in terms of how much exertion was involved.

If I can do it every weekend what will happen? Hopefully opportunities will come up. Do I want to be an actor or comedian? Not really, I have a job. I was going to start the process of copywriting for my next website and I couldn’t get away from the story and narrative concepts, I want to tell my story. I want to hear from people who are going to get me closer to that. What’s it about, it’s about telling stories, I dress up as a pirate, I’m a storyteller.

I’m not going to take some gig unless the money or opportunity is good for promoting my music I make and my videos – my stories. I might of said before my big dream was to have V drink or someone on the line giving me a $2000, $5000, $10,000 dollar expense account to make my dumb video, but then in a projected real life fantasy, more likely, a casting agent (or someone else who could be significantly lower or higher in the food chain) would see my videos and say . . . we want this guy, to do this dumb thing.

At first, there’s no money in it, until . . . it’s 2 days work, we’ll give you $5000. Catering, y’know, the works. But other than that, well, it’s just my nose – you never know what could be offered to you, you never know who will contact you. So in the meantime before you start dreaming too much, you might want to get on with it.

What I like about this video is it’s deceptively simple, and in this point lends a great deal of weight to this stupid blog.

It seems like a dumb video where I’m being a dick and taking the piss out of myself as an internet marketing dude. But it’s really setting the context of my character. All the ideas I’ve been working and kneading on this blog come stacked to the hilt, I know what I;m doing with this stuff, it’s like chess, I’m 13 moves ahead. Now I have to bring the pirate. When the marketing character and the pirate come together we’re ready to go with RCTV2.

We need a microphone to do voiceovers, otherwise we can’t complete a lot of the videos we have planned. Not a completely crappy one like the ones likely round here.

Otherwise we’re just left with the last transmission. Which is important to do to kick that storyline off.

And also means we can start doing some copywriting on a more mysterious vibe, while we build out the archive.

Last Transmission and Home Alone are waiting for me to start moving the office around that could be next week, at least get the shots I need.

Last Transmission is supposed to be set up as a ramshackle camp salvaged from a crash, with me demonstrating how primitive technology can be used to create communication and vibes.

Now we’re looking at the preacher / sermon / exorcist character for more stuff I can do in my room by myself.

I have to blog unfortunately. It’s part of my condition. The doctor is supposed to helping me with my therapy but I think he really has no clue.

But some days I feel like my head is going to explode. Business has kept me busy for the last few years, but now I’ve created more time and space, I just squander it writing blogs about some nonsense I can’t get of my mind.

The doctor is supposed to help me stay focused on outcomes.

I was thinking I should probably start working on another manuscript. A blog is just a horrid scrawl really, but when you work on a manuscript, you smash it out and then you edit for at least a year, and get something really strong. Because all I’ve got is rambling blogs. I do do reviews which are generally positive. Y’know, I see ideas growing and I all this nonsense about crazy adventures I write is just a narrative work out, it’s like throwing some stuff in a pan and cooking up and seeing what it tastes like.

A song comes together much like a hard narrative, there may be a theme with a character riding on another character or theme and when those elements come together at a dramatic point, a chorus or a bass drop, then you feel the exhilaration that keeps you reading and listening on, gripped by the story and the groove.

I had ideas for more manuscripts but I think I’m older now and will theink they’re all dumb. The follow up to evil robot was supposed to be the young clubbers, and it was supposed to be about fun. There would be a lot of themes around trying to construct fun, and trap fun, harvest fun and suck it dry. In the plot the characters open a club themselves, but towards the end of the story it also explores the way monogamy is very similar, and I think I wasn’t really comfortable taking the story to a place where the main couple end up in a brutal, tangled co dependence. It’s a happy but not happy ending.

The themes are interesting I just don’t see myself putting it together. But a manuscript is something you can work over. I think I had a list of my concepts

Evil Robot – the 90’s high school saga
Compassion Fatigue – the 2000’s club saga

Reality Compound – about a young dickhead who wanders around auckland talking and thinking and dreaming about the one side relationship between him and his band and the girls that are not in his life.

Zoo School – the short story companion to Evil Robot

Mary – was the story of a city kid’s dark adventure in a small waikato town

There was a short story companion to Compassion Fatigue also but I’m not sure it had a name. I’m just trying to count through them because I’m sure I had 7 ideas in total.

Maybe I counted the myspace idea as one. Which is not out of the question, but I guess that’s more the Reality Compound movie. Maybe the story of the kid in the band was changed to “Dreams Burn Down” because there was now I reality compound movie.

That’s about a music executive who secretly starts his own band on myspace, goes huge with it, gets into all sorts, gets fired, goes on an extended bender where he begins to believe he really is the guy on myspace, I guess it’s a story about how the fakery he railed against ended up swallowing him until he discovers that it means nothing, that being a big deal on myspace in auckland doesn’t really mean anything at all.

And wow hasn’t the story of the emo guys played that one out? I never made the full mistake because I was taking the piss. These other guys were serious, and are probably burnt most of all that all that myspace love didn’t add up to much in the end. It wasn’t really real. It turned out to be as fake for the mini fake stars as it was for the teenagers who elevated them.

I’m just thinking if I’m 50 and I’m bored, I might end up saying hey . . . I’ve got all these ideas for movies, maybe I should make some short art films??? Sounds pretty likely to me.

Not that much will come of it except they could be used as concepts for a song bundle, such as all the Home Alone / Haunted Garden stuff which I still intend to do, especially when all the singles have come out on different labels, it’s a way of reviving them and showcasing them in years to come if people want to go back and hear your ratty old tunes.

I’d say that this once was a concept for a novel or a short story collection. But compassion fatigue was quite developed and I remember how I struggled to depart from monogamy to drive the narrative, and now 10 years later, it just seems boring, and that no interesting person would be that interested in a story basically about how unglamourous and stupid the lives of glamourous twenty somethings are.

I’d just wouldn’t be sympathetic, I’d be too cynical to relate to how stupid the characters are.

But my next manuscript is off course “How to be Awesome”. I’ll need to dig back here to dig up the details. It’s exciting because it’s genre bending, it’s fresh in that respect.

THE RETURN OF HOW TO BE AWESOME

thought of an awesome device, a self help ebook in which instructional tone slowly takes on the character and personality of a protagonist

The hardest part would be pulling off the transition. I see how it could move to a questioning tone. Then answering the question in an active way that threads a narrative slowly into the reasoning process.

Then it becomes a story about a guy who is trying to become awesome by writing a book about being awesom and is discovering how un awesome he is.

That’s where we need a character. Maybe even devices that represent a tug of war between the reader and author, the reader pulling for more information about who the author is, then we finish by slowly returnig back to the ebook format, but what is the grand finale?

This could get really interesting from a reality compound point of view because as the character comes alive, maybe I have to bring them to life and then lay them to rest.

It’s very hard to do this without having other characters. But maybe this character doesn’t have a family or friends, and the book then goes into that, in a way, he is rediscovering himself. Maybe it becomes about mid life crisis, asking where the hopes and dreams go. Ambrozia would fit nicely into this story, as the turning point from which he became a sad schlub.

All I can see right now is a cynical end where he finishes the how to be awesome ebook even though he doesn’t believe it.

I think the idea of all these stories is that they could possibly have video and musical elements to them. And that the stories would be more novella length, I wouldn’t be obsessed with 100,000 words.

I’m pretty sure I wrote something else here.

Soul Science – Low Key / Power Supply – is out today through Ambra Recordings – get it on beatport! I couldn’t work out how to embed the tunes from beatport

Soulscience – Power Supply/Lowkey (AMBRA003) Release Date 28/07/2011 by Ambra Recordings

Soulscience – Lowkey (AMBRA003) by Ambra Recordings

You’d think after awhile I would get it. I was going to tell you how all the tiny little things to fix in my bmw were such a drag I may as well buy a slightly better one, even though I like to be upwardly mobile when it comes to my mobility. But y’know who cares? Does it even matter? Is this what turns people into dribbling zombies?

I was going to talk about how entirely amateurish my videography efforts had been and that only new technology had allowed for such an extent of my incompetence, nut again, who cares? Who cares if I’m not that good, that’s not of interest to anybody.

But I take my anxious tedium with an optimistic outlook. It’s not that boredom is such a luxury, but hey how about a garden metaphor? These moments of dullness I experience can only be fertilizer, nutrients for strong new growth.

I was thinking about something funny and I almost forgot. If you want to attract women you usually have to act like an absolute douche canoe, so I personally don’t want to be anywhere near anyone who’s opinion has any bearing on me when I’m on the pull. It’s humiliating to know people who know you have seen you acting like a dick to get women.

So rather than being creepy, the framing becomes more humourous as alternate personas interchange, the goofy womanizer and the cynical commentary. It’s a way of framing my behaviour as conflicted, both stupid and smart, I think there’s some value there, but then again, you can talk about it all you like until you’re ready to throw down.

That’s what doing the hamlet soliloquy was about, was acknowledging I can have all the fancy gear I want, if I don’t throw down, then what’s the point. But I was out filming the other night and my crappy little camera’s batteries were all over the place. I want to do stuff with voiceovers but where’s the mic?

I want to do Romantech’s liquid love clinic on youtube, 15 minutes of mixing and stupid love advice and faux meaningful nonsense, I love the faux meaningful stuff that just wavers between being serious and nonsense, so so close, you barely notice when I’m being serious and when I’m taking the piss. That’s what reality compound was suposed to be about, that fine line where parody and documentary meet.

But I need a proper casual camera in that the battery situation is not good, I need rechargeables. I need to dig up my old mic so I can start recording radio style comedy, with stupid voices, I’ve got a couple of stupid ideas, and of course I want to do dumb voices for romantech’s liquid love clinic of dumb people calling in for my love advice.

It makes me think . . . the ideas are ready to go, I just need more time to get into the habit of getting into an idea. Like I said, when the phone rings and someone puts through an order I know exactly what to do.

Now I need to retrain myself, like I did on myspace, to produce content as a habit, to have that thought process . . . wow I should do a mix and put it on youtube . . . I should do some funny shit over the top . . . and then just hit it.

But I also have to sort out all those little details, batteries, microphones, set up routines, get in, nail them. Rememorize the hamlet bit and nail it. It’s hard, it’s frustrating but it’s like any kind of repeated exercise or training you only get better throwing yourself at it and overcoming the stumbling blocks. The ideas are waiting to come out, I just need to put more effort into the actual execution and if I can stay focused on making it easier just to pick up the camera and roll, then it’s only a matter of time before I end up doing it.

None of that is that interesting. But we’ve tried being interesting and awesome before and there just isn’t that much point if you can’t capture or record, transmit the essence, the vibe. Awesome and interesting takes work.

I WAS JUST LOOKING FOR THIS POST . . . I NEVER PUBLISHED IT! Just trying to archive all the progress I’ve made on tunes. I don’t really know where level 10 is.

This is a relentless archiving and cataloging post, I’m trying to work out which were all the good songs I ever did. Probably a lot of songs I thought were okay at the time, but not really, so it might get boring.

So we’re writing these 4 drum and bass tunes to be better than the last 4 tunes and so on and so on.

In our little flexistructure situation set up below, that is called level 10, with 4 songs.

And of course we’ve had a dream for about 5 years now of doing some dumb youtube thing, which I think is closer to what I’m supposed to do then drum and bass but that doesn’t mean much if I never get round to actually doing it.

It’s all about forming a narrative that makes sense to your audience in order to create communication and understanding, and if you can’t frame the narrative then you don’t have a strong concept that compels.

MUSIC ARCHIVE FRAMING

Level 9 – failed inspection 2010 – 6 songs

Theres the latest signings – failed inspection, god knows what’s going on there, you got Beyond Faith, Mista Vista, Conspiracy, Avatar, Low Key and Power Supply.

Level 11 – haunted microscope – 2011 – 9 songs

Then there’s the haunted microscope thats loosely planned, that’s all Polyps, Pretty Ghosts, Paper Tigers, Doubt, Journeys, Rain, In The Morning, Redemption, and Hang ‘em High was also associated with this chapter, as was Problemantech, but look hey, that’s a dubstep song. Whatever, it’s all about life through the lens.

Level 8 – Dojo Inspectors – 2009 – 8 songs

Then you got the remaining Dojo Inspectors tunes – including Kings, Wine Cooler and Who Loves Ya but also Special Request, Own Thing, All Hands, You’re Already Mine, Buzzing, etc.

I also did my remix of “Robospacejesus” for Sharkweek here.

Level 7 – Early Soul Science – 2008 – 6 songs

Then you go back to the earliest Soul Science material – although Conspiracy comes from this era, we also have Desire, Dirty, Alpha Vidi and you could associate Gonna Getcha with this era as I wrote at the same time and it later graduated to a Soul Science track. Gonna Getcha I have a personal thing about because I really tried to make this track good but when I totally ruined it by trying too hard and completely messing up the compression and drum sound, it really bummed me out, I hit the ceiling and then the wall. The early Soul Science tracks though unpolished all had a lot of character to them though.

You could also add my Tom Bosley Experience Remix of “Self Examination Circus” and my “Copywrong”  remix, again because they were quirkier in character and reminiscent of the Soul Science sound.

Level 6 – Such Heavy Wings – 2007 – 7 songs

When you go before that, you’re going into the realm last known as “Such Heavy Wings”. The better tunes included Ill Fish, They Shine, Lockdown, Everything, Girlfriends and Positive Vibes. Definitely stuff there that could be resurrected. My Remix of NSU’s Neutron Star was around then also.

Level 5 – Myspace / Full Circle – 2006 – 9 songs

Now going earlier than that, gosh . . . Everything was the oldest song, and that belonged with a string that included songs – gosh we’re getting back there now! -Long Ting, Sweet Ambrozia, Out There, Past Lives, Pacificized, Brother Sister, You Need Love, Sure Enough, this is all classic myspace era fare, so we can’t forget the Dizzy Boy remix.

I remember Sure Enough being quite early and myspace, then there was You Need Love and finally Past Lives which was the big step up of it’s era – while Long Ting, Out There etc being post AI tour.

Level 4 – Mp3 era – 2005 – 3 songs

Between that myspace era and after Data:Bass you got some other tunes too such as Be With Me, In The Future There Will Be Funk, that was kind of mp3.com era.

I was also working on the “Sounds Good” EP that never happened, but that had the chilled jazz step track Ice Breaker, and there was an interesting layered track called “Inner Workings” which was very tapestry sounding.

Level 3: Lickwicked – 2004 – 4 songs

Then there was Lickwicked, my liquid solo Data:bass thing. From me it featured Moving On, All I Got, Like You Do and Metro sound.

Level 2: Data:Bass – 2002 to 2004 – 4 songs

Then finally we get to the Data:Bass era, including my first Data:Bass tunes – Almost Home, Chain Reaction, Shots, and Haters Don’t Know. There are still possibly some ideas that were never finished from all around these periods that had solid ideas – Sound of Forever, Roll on the Night – I don’t know if we could ever upload and present a song we’ve never had a finished version of though.

Level 1: Early era – up to 2002 – 3 songs

And finally my first, pre Data:Bass tunes, many which I have already uploaded – Recognition, Lynch Mob and Release/Plate Techtonics. The chances of doing all new remixes of these tunes is kind of unlikely but if there was some way I could dice them up for consumption . . . stew them up for serving.

that’s 63 tunes over 9 years and 11 stages. That is insane.

That’s JUST Drum and Bass, and is only counting the songs I believe could possibly have a future, there are songs on Dojo Inspectors and Such Heavy Wings that never really get a look in on this list just because well, there’s 64 tunes there, if I ever get back to some of these numbers we’ll worry about it then. Otherwise it’s just a song on the tracklisting that doesn’t really have anything to say for itself.

God what a massive list of tunes, I haven’t even mentioned all of them, just the obvious ones I’d like to showcase with a chance of resurrecting them as if they weren’t years old so in through the framing of my website you could find out what they were and that you can hear the crusty old version I wrote.

You see? That really feels like resolution, to tell a story of how I was a broken arsed drug dealing DJ slinging ratty beats and getting my heart broken until years later I returned with my money and my style all down and I ran the game. I like the the sound of that story.

whats the point in this shit? should you just handle it or give up? just die? it would save a lot of hassle. I’d be into it.

It’d be like sleeping. but would it? what exactly you gonna dream about? thats why people stay alive so long even though life is shit for them. Why put up with a lifetime of shit when you’ve got nothing to chill with at the end of the day?

Why would you work to live each day unless you were scared of what comes after?

No one knows, no one comes back, so we stick with what we know.

In our minds we’re all scared. You think you’re ready to live, but it’s sick when you think about it, you try and do something big, but it turns to shit.

. . . goddamn that chick Ophelia was fine . . .

That’s my modern reading of Hamlet.

He says, why bother trying to live when life is full of bullshit, basically because we’re to scared to die, now where’s that hottie, ophelia?

I am practicing it to warm up for getting back into youtube and really throwing down some serious drama, I might look at some other famous soliloquys I could do, just as I’ warming up over the next 6 months and I want to be able to do little mini snippets where I can flex by just filming some action or drama or comedy with my own skills and devices without turning it into a full scale excursion when I’m trying to go from monthly episodes to fortnightly, and right now just trying to go to monthly.

It’s little bite sized stuff I’ll use to launch ideas and generally extend myself.

In the beginning I’ll have a quick screen

Reality Compound presents

A Kurb Promotions production

Shakespeare’s “Hamlet; Prince of Denmark”

As performed by

Matt

AFTER:

This has been a Reality Compound presentation

for Kurb Promotions LLC

starring: Matt

performing

Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”

I don’t think there’s any need to discern, describe, delineate, depict or make a distinction in regards to the difference between Matt, Reality Compound and Romantech.

Romantech is a DJ who provides music and such for a lot of the clips.

Reality Compound was the name of a myspace project that Matt was associated with.

Matt is the guy from Kurb Promotions who used to be involved with Reality Compound

That’s as far as the connection goes in terms of the narrative so far. If people know or work it out, good on them, it could be hiding in plain site or not hiding at all. I will never be seen to claim that Romantech is a different person, I will act as if it’s always something assumed, “I do some DJing” “I make beats” etc. it’s just a part of the narrative that is taken for granted in such a way that it actually obscures the fact.

When the common person comes across my thing, they probably just see a random video, they don’t understand anything about the show, they just like it, somebodies told them about it or they were in it.

I want there to be a real narrative though because that’s what will connect people to it, that they start to get the story, then they want to see from the beginning.

And they see how lo-fi my stuff is they see the Steve video, and all I have to do is better than that, so they see a journey from where I am now to hopefully a more prolific future where I drop new videos every week.

I’m hoping once I’ve done some kurb videos I will be comfortable behind the camera again and keen to climb the ladder and do something more challenging.

Also, I have to recognise that it’s the space that’s allowing me to get into all this stuff. If I didn’t have the space, I wouldn’t have realised how little footage I actually have to use for my backstory stuff.

It’s okay to chill for now while I get ready to move forward with new levels of sustained energy. Recognising there’s a problem there is part of providing the solution and the way forward.

I’m best to do all my kurb and romantech stuff first, building up to it. My pirate stuff, because the pirate is another good angle to come in on.

Of course part of that narrative I’m drawing from there to here to beyond, is that I once was a ratty drum and bass DJ, and I got on myspace and became some fake kind of internet trainwreck parody, and then I got into business, and there’s as much to work with in my poor, obscure, yet meaningful past to the future where I work with insane artists on insane projects and my desperation is all the more amplified.

And in that, maybe it puts into relief a simpler time when I was just a loser DJ, just a loser drug dealer, just some loser wannabe on myspace.

I will build a Romantech archive, and I will do my best to recover the lost reality compound files

I just hope I have enough tatters to string a flimsy story together that will get this damn thing off the ground.

Just been having a bit of a funny old freak out over potentially lost Reality Compound and Short Circuit material.

There were a lot of problems along the road with losing footage, tapes going missing, computers, hard drives stolen, negligence, whatever . . . so what I have left is very skant as it is.

It really wasn’t that much of a big deal I guess but when someone remarks or reacts to my video stuff, I kind of respond by feeling a sense of wasted opportunity, which is not really something I can hang onto if I want to move forward, because I want to go to a bigger place, step up to a new level with it now, and I can’t be getting all excited just because somebody said they liked my video.

Creatively I have to push on, and push through.

But I have to be coming from somewhere too, I can’t just pop up out of nowhere at this stage without any evidence of the journey that brought me to this place I’m at now, because everything that happened with Romantech and Reality Compound and Myspace is all part of the story.

It’s not about reaching back to the past – but it’s about a series, a continuum, a story that has depth and background.

But when it comes to putting together the pieces of the puzzle, it gets me concerned creatively, how am I going to bring this together?

How am I going to communicate that important precursor, prestory, preface . . . this is like the Hobbit to the Lord of the Rings, I’ve got to be able to paint a picture of how it was and what happened before.

All the old vibes are dead aside from me still walking around carrying them with me, all that stuff happened years ago, but I wanted that to be part of the story, that I left Reality Compound behind to be the Kurb business guy, but still the vibe calls me back, and tells me there’s no point in being some rich guy and just letting go of everything that was once important.

And all those old storylines are waiting to be rediscovered, except, no one will remember, no one will care anymore, so that’s why I need as much evidence from the past as possible, to paint out that side of the story.

I mean the whole idea about Reality Compound is a story that is happening, that is unfolding – but I want that rich past to help me to define that. I guess that’s just part of the creative challenge, and it’s nowhere near as challenging as what I have to do now to bring myself back to the level I once was and then go beyond it so that people might care where it all came from.

I guess that’s the way I have to face it and deal with it, if there’s nothing to tell the story for me, I have to tell it – I have to bring it to life, documentary style, or kind of like a Lost thing where you see glimpses of the past that fill in certain narrative themes for the audience.

It’s not about what happened in the past – I mean there’s some really interesting stuff there about how I arrived at where I am now, but it’s what happens next, about my rediscovery of my purpose there, that is the story I’m now telling.

But in the story it is very much about relating to the past, but at the same time there’s no reason we can’t have new adventures, while introducing old characters, it’s very much about the tone of the narrative.

I guess even if I am freaked out that I have lost even more of the past, so it creates the incentive to recreate it to bring my story forward again.

Remember that even the original Reality Compound had a back story, which was loosely based on reality.

And now the new Reality Compound has a back story too.

But I guess whatever happens, in whatever ways I fail – including if I fail to bring “the way it was” to life – Reality Compound is the story of the little guy who wants to be a big deal, and we’ve all been growing up hanging onto these dreams, failure and humiliation, and then the redemption and resolution that follows is all part of the story.

If I fail to present the backstory then that’s just another failure, but a failure to embrace – as part of the new story, whatever the new story will be, because that’s what I have to worry about first.

“And in the meantime we try . . . try to forget that nothing lasts forever . . .

funny how it all falls away . . .”

So I was wrapping up the april post by talking about making my presence felt before I get back into gigging.

That made me think more about how I don’t want to do shitty uncertain gigs any more, unless its a tour and its meant to be that way – not because i’m all bitter on it, but more because I see more art and creativity in my old myspace ways, of being creatively disruptive to the scene and being that way, being present on the net or otherwise.

Once my narrative is underway I’ll want to be a “youtube personality”, I’ll turn up for the things and be in character. People may not react well in person to me being in character but thats part of the show, and I’m hardened to it.

I just want to do my songs and my videos in my room and you can’t stop me, like those uncool kids at school who didn’t know they were uncool, you couldn’t stop them from doing what they liked and just flouting themselves in front of the cool kids with gay abandon.

I’m not there to be cool, I’m making art, if my art means i’m despised well whatever.

I’m joining the path with myspace again in spirit, away from the local drum and bass scene. I’m making my john b/andre 3000 move now. I don’t care about the rules.

When through a combo of old fashioned internet marketing and branding I do have an established audience, then ill start gigging, and i’ll just play drum and bass or whatever i like, sing songs, whatever i feel like, I don’t really care about the old way, i just want to go back to the myspace way and have fun again, meet crazy people, but just do my own thing.

Haven’t written on the Romantech blog in ages!

Battling in business, hard, I’m in the warzone. There’s been victories but it’s still an every day fight.

Beforeit was just grinding work with no chance of art to happen, now I’m in a paralysis as work has gone down hill and I’ve had to deal with just how shaky I built all on my foundations on, I’ve had a lot of pain trying to make sure everything wouldn’t fall around me, business and music.

There’ll be some changes for real, I’m not going to get over this quickly. Just going to have to go in a new direction, I guess.

I gotta start writing and putting down video to know where thats going to be. I’ve been feeling totally drained of creativity but I know I’ll be back on it, but I want to be clear in my mission and its outcomes.

I guess I’m smart enough to know thats how it will be so I guess I’ll be writing again to get there.

But I worry I don’t have to do what I was going to do and being a dick for the camera isn’t going to be my thing any more. Well it wasn’t really but I guess I kind of was like, well hey, I can be a dick. I might still be a dick but I want to see how it goes.

How do I see it?

Well I’ll start doing new beats, I’ll start filming random stuff, and putting it to the beats, and doing my blog and then I might get an idea for something I can do and then just do it.

I think thats what I’m about now, just putting it down, rather than being all precious about achieving something.

It’s all about making a concept happen right there, like I did with reality compound, but drawing music and video into the concept and the storyline.

As I said with my video, I’ll start with serious videos for kurb, and then get more subversive until finally i break my professional character and reintroduce my self via reality compound as the character from the videos made suddenly real. And music and a storyline will enter reality compound from there.

I think I want to start from the bottom, long suffering businessman who is older now and desperately trying to participate in business and hipster culture.

Thats why entering throuh serious kurb videos I can bounce off the first few videos as failed out takes, 2 or 3, before devolving somehow until the point an actual fully realised song is ready.

And it’s not stylistic at all, i’ll write whatever. The artist is romantech, and the show is reality compound. It’s not really ever explained – I’m obviously romantech, romantech is a dj/producer, music is featured as a major part of the show, it’s obviously my music but its not really explained that this is a romantech vehicle.

The fact that I am romantech is secondary to the narrative of matt trying to make it as a somebody in auckland.

It’s only in time I’ll do “music videos” that are more music than storyline, until then I’ll work on how the storyline can be supported by the music I have available, mainly electro/minimal style d’n b beds that will evolve to vocal numbers with crissendo’s etc.

I think there will be certain plotlines – modelling agency, tiger penis, the fall of myspace and I think I’m getting closer to where I can exploit the desperateness in that ricky gervais extras way – but a rollercoaster of high highs, being a player and an enigma to being a total reject and tryhard.

Not good nor bad, but someone who just wants to be accepted and loved.

I think it’s about people being flawed when they do the things they think will make people like them, that it makes someone so human just to strive to be accepted. But to also be dehumanised by the desperation for it, and how that itself maybe a symptom of our time.

See it’s working! The ideas are flowing! When I see myself as a character in a story it makes it easier to create the art. I’m not trying to say everything, I’m telling the story of a journey.

Pretty full on weekend, well not really, but it seemed like it.

I had to get up both mornings to play pirates which kind of prevented me from getting into too much trouble and also got me out of bed a little earlier than I’m used to, giving me a chance to appreciate that summer is on it’s way with a weekend of great weather.

Good weather means good times, summery sounds, and a whole lot of hi how ya doing and I was instantly struck that there’s no way I should be sitting around squirreled away on projects this summer and I need to be getting with where it’s at.

I need to play it out, and no longer is it the time to be concerned about the bigger picture and plodding along. Not this year, it’s not that I’m sick of the endless not quite and the ongoing retouching, but I gotta accept that . . .

Well, that’s why the hell I write this for right now, I gotta understand more deeply what it is that I want.

I don’t want to spend another summer feeling like I’m not quite rich enough or my tunes aren’t quite good enough for me to . . . it’s not about “enjoying myself” more. I enjoy myself plenty alright,  and it’s not about the trophy party, to brag about how much I was “enjoying myself”, it’s about being more inside the adventure.

That’s a real part of my art, I know that the city is an adventure full of possibilities and I long to embrace it.

That’s what myspace was like, it was adventurous and I was in the routine of it, I want to get back into the routine of having an adventurous lifestyle without sacrificing the forward momentum of my business and my music if at all possible.

Definitely appreciating I need to be rolling in a new ride with good sounds bumping and being disposed toward where the vibes are at, not locked into some dilemma about what I’m supposed to be doing and why I’m not where I want to be with my music or business. What does that really matter as long as it moves forward at it’s own pace and day to day, you feel like somethings going on, real life is happening to you?

Well then what am I doing turning up dressed as a pirate to a kid’s pirate birthday party?

What am I thinking, how does this work into my plans?

Being a pirate in itself is an adventure, it’s a real adventure that I do this, even though the initial buzz I got out of pushing out of my comfort zone and getting back into pirate birthday parties is over, I’ve got to remember that relatively, it’s something special.

It’s something different, it’s interesting, it’s good, and let’s not forget to note that the money is pretty good also.

Doing something good and pushing through and having fun with the kids and getting paid is “enjoying myself”, getting pissed and staring at a bunch of chicks I don’t have the balls to talk to . . . isn’t.

Well it did get me out of bed, and I’m still pushing toward that time when it’s just going to absolutely be no thing at all to turn up at a kids party, do my pirate thing without even blinking, which I was able to do, the main problem being I didn’t really want to push it by going out the night before and I did end up sitting in my bed kind of counting down the hours ruefully.

Because my time and my plans end up constructed around this shit.

To me I think it’s a matter of doing it over and over again until I realise I am a natural and I don’t have to worry about anything going wrong because at this point I’m getting out of bed, spending 10 minutes getting ready, grabbing a coffee and just doing it and so far, going great. I don’t really know what I expect to do wrong.

As I say, I just hope as I develop the ability to wing it and not let any of these concocted expectations trouble me, fairly soon I’ll be doing parties every weekend and not letting it interfere with my plans.

What those plans exactly are I’m still thinking on, but one things for sure, if there’s gonna be that good weather, it means I want to be rolling in my ride with the girls and chilling out, that’s where I want to be getting, not troubling myself over some business affairs or some art aspiration that’s going to fall short.

Next up gonna talk some more about my weekend plans in regards to the music and understanding what I want and can expect.

pirate auckland