Up there in the header of this blog. Like the nose of a long jet airliner turning towards you on the runway.
Promoting one’s stance is natural, and can eventually gather together supporters of one’s stance, which can boost intensity along positive lines. But sometimes, there can get to be a point where one perhaps wants to shift to another position, because of fatigue or boredom or pain, or perhaps because one realizes that one’s stance is no longer supported by one’s own feelings, or one realizes that other people interpret one’s stance in a way that becomes burdensome, or one sees a more comfortable or more appropriate possible stance and wants to begin to shift to that posture. What happens with the “supporters” one has gathered through promoting the old stance? Do they count on you to remain that way? Do they feel abandoned or betrayed as you start to shift? Did they depend upon their definition of you as constituted by your position?
Ah, a very general and suggestive way of writing. Too general. I am meditating on my own activities and roles, habits and desires, directions and flows, breaks and blocks. I’ve become a fairly public person in certain realms, mainly local music, via my attendance at rock shows, membership in bands, radio show, and blogging. I think I’ve built up expectations around these activities and certainly I’ve willingly cast myself in these roles. But: I do not consider myself part of the music “business.” I find myself resisting that category. I am not anti-moneymaking, for sure. But I do not find myself trying very hard to make money in music. I have a day job for making money, and that seems fine for me. I am pro-success in terms of rooting for my friends to be successful rock stars in whatever way they are going for, but I don’t necessarily buy in to the rock star formula, the conventional fame-production methodologies, or the business of rock and roll at all. If I happen to boost a band by posting some pictures or having them on the radio, it’s not because I’m trying to help them promote themselves, it’s because I am a fan or I want variety on my show, or I want to share pictures of a cool rock show that I went to, etc.
The phrase “money changes everything” has been going through my head lately, with respect to art and music. I’m trying to sort out where I’m at with “art” and “business”–but I know my inclinations are toward a very cynical view of the combining of those two realms/processes. A business attitude toward music must necessarily channel the art, the magic, in ways that promote the monetization of as much as possible. Fetish and ritual, image-aura and sexual power, sound and fury are all monetized. I suspect that monetization is a magical procedure whereby life’s vitality is muted and everything, all diversities, all qualities, all uniquenesses are equated under the dollar (or euro or yen etc) sign.
