In fact, feel free to turn off your computer, TV, cellphone, etc., and get out there and live! But before you do, don’t forget to turn off the iron.
I am sitting on my patio contemplating all manner of affairs, which isn’t easy, considering all the distractions around me. There is a domestic dispute to the northeast, a lawnmower going to the south, traffic trolling past in the west, and a rabbit shopping in my garden. I’m not kidding – it has a shopping bag, a platinum credit card and everything! Now I know where my carrot seedlings have been disappearing to. Damn you, you furry little fiend – now shove off!
Oh well, at least it’s spring and I have a magnificent orchestration of birds to enjoy. I just wish they wouldn’t insist on rehearsing at 4:00 a.m.
About a year after I started blogging and following other music blogs, I began to notice bloggers dropping out of cyberspace. After a hiatus, a few came back, but most did not. Many of these bloggers had done a great service to music by uncovering old gems, compiling them together with insights, history, trivia, etc., and sharing them with the world (speaking of gems, be sure to check out an amazing collection of Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac over at BWBW).
With the demise of good radio, the musical blogosphere has became a primary venue for new musical discoveries for me, so I considered the implosions of these blogs to be a loss. I wouldn’t say I was devestated, but certainly sad. I noticed that the lifespan of a typical music blog was about three years. Perhaps it is the curse of three. Bad things come in three’s. Relationships often end after three months. How long does that new car smell last?
Like so many other bloggers, I joined the blogosphere without much consideration as to how I would find the time to maintain a blog. Based on the coda posts of so many blogs that have come and gone in the short history of the blogosphere, it appears that a lack of time is the primary reason bloggers cite for packing it in.
My job has me in front of a computer screen for more than 2000 hours per year, and that’s before I sit down to work on my blog. I provide volunteer assistance to several websites, and I currently contribute writing to another two. Suffice to say, I spend a lot of time to in front of video screens. Oddly enough, I watch very little TV, but then, when would I have the time?
So you see, I have been finding it increasingly difficult to sit down and put together posts/downloads every week. I have a lot to offer, but even if I could make more time, I am not sure that it is worth it. In three short years I have published 400 posts and received only a handful of comments, despite nearly 400,000 downloads. This isn’t an ego thing. I don’t need comments to keep doing this, but without them, how do I know I am reaching anyone? It’s not like I have to do this. Shit man, I can sit and listen to records any time I want. I can even do it with other people, and suck back a few cold beers while I am at it.
So is this goodbye? Well not exactly. You see, I made the mistake of making promises via this blog, and I hate breaking promises. I’ve got a few things to post before I take a hiatus (permament or otherwise). A couple of album reviews, a trip down memory lane for a close friend, and a multi-volume set of Bring Out Your Dead for 2009.
It’s the last of those promises that has kept my posts to a minimum for most of 2010. When I have managed to find the time, I have been scouring my collection and trolling other libraries sourcing materials for the more than 150 great musicians who died in 2009. The sheer number of deaths alone was depressing enough, but when I started reviewing the music, I really began to feel the huge loss.
I cannot possibly do all these dead musicians the justice they deserve, so how, I thought, do I approach this project? At first, I simply started dropping names from my list. These were mostly the more obscure artists that are harder to source and probably wouldn’t be well known or appreciated anyway. But then I thought, well shite, that’s why you started this damn blog in the first place, so I went back and started sourcing materials for these people and I was shocked at how amazing some of these artists were. I began discovering recordings I had no idea existed – the kind that make your jaw drop in amazement.
When a musician departs the living and you start reviewing their discography, it can have a tremendous effect upon you, especially if you were a big fan of their work. It can hit you hard when you realize you will never hear anything new from them ever again. Now multiply that 150 times. Then it is bigger than just the music. You start to think about your own mortality and what you are doing with your life. You start to realize that life is passing you by.
As an aspiring musician myself, I started wondering what the hell I am doing here posting to a blog when I should be working on honing my craft? At about the same time some friends invited me to come and play drums for one of their gigs. After a 5-hour drive, I showed up at their gig a few minutes before they were set to play. I sat down at the drum kit and only got up a couple of times over the next 4 hours. I started out a bit shaky, but got better as the evening progressed. There was no rehearsal, so I was operating on instinct, signals, and plain dumb luck. And everyone was happy with my playing (truth be known, they were likely just happy to have a drummer, but my ego graciously accepts the encouragement). Since then I have played a few more gigs and my comfort level has increased. Now I look to the future and I am trying to figure out how to squeeze in more time for playing/practicing on my calendar. Blogging is the furthest thing from my mind.
I have also noticed that many musicians tend to have small record collections. Well ok, small from my perspective, but then, I have thousands of recordings. It seems these musicians keep the music inside them rather than around them. I suppose I am a hopeless collector, but there’s something to be said about being rather than having. I think it’s time for me to spend more time being.
That being said, I still have a lot of music to offer up, and I suppose I could still find the time for the odd post here and there, but it hardly seems worth it to keep a blog alive for an indefinite amount of time with so little regular activity. Some of the more successful blogs have several contributors and that some of these people are also musicians – an interesting coincidence. I have put the “feelers” out there for other contributors to join The Basement Rug, but so far I have had little luck. Most people these days are far too clever to get pinned down to a commitment of any kind. So the rug may soon get pulled out from under this basement.
Until then….
I am the creator and site administrator at The Basement Rug. I have been collecting LP's and CD's for more than 30 years. I
a well written piece, rugrat. 2000 hours a year in front of a computer screen is quite a lot of time, and in all probability 1800 too many. your comments surrounding the legacy of departed musicians is just one of many reasons for music blogging. but much like your computer hours, perhaps you’re spending too much time contemplating their place in history, and feeling a responsibility to keep their names alive. nothing wrong with that other than the possibility of spending more time remembering them, while subsequently forgetting yourself as you’ve pointed out. perhaps a more simple solution might be to write a well researched essay each month on the musician of your choice, rather than attempting to say it all in one gigantic post. or forget blogging, and write a book. i’ve encouraged you to do that before, and i think you should seriously consider it.
and you’re right, if you want to be a solid musician, then don’t listen to anyone else’s recordings with regularity. that’s the only way you’ll ever find your own voice. otherwise you’ll just end up emulating those you admire.
and p.s. — thanks for the nice plug. my best to you.
Thanks for stopping by Miles. I just downloaded Rattlesnake Shake – part-3 of your Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac feature. I concur with your case – they are the best Brit blues band ever, and indeed PG may be the best white blues guitarist of all time.
I went to a house concert in Hamilton before heading to work tonight. It featured Anais Mitchell, who did some songs from her latest Righteous Babe release: Hadestown.
As I noted here:
Hadestown tells the story of the ancient Greek myth of the poet Orpheus and his doomed quest to rescue his love Eurydice from the Underworld. But in Mitchell’s hands, the familiar saga is reimagined as unfolding in a version of the U.S. that simultaneously evokes our Depression-era past, the current financial disaster (though it was written before the stock market collapse), and a post-apocalyptic future. It’s a land where people hide behind walls in a misguided attempt to preserve their “freedom” and protect their riches.
Danny Schmidt called Hadestown “a work of pure genius”. He wasn’t kidding. Anais’ “mind-boggling focus and dedication” has created a masterpiece – one that is starting to get noticed. It has already created thousands of hits on my blog from all around the world.
As good as the album is though, Anais is just one of those special performers that has to be seen and heard – a recording just cannot capture her magic and range of emotion.
The show itself was as simple as it gets: A girl and her guitar, and 40 people squeezed into a livingroom full of chairs. No microphones or amplification of any kind, just pure ambient sound. Anais’ powerful and emotional voice is something spectacular to witness unadulterated by electricity.
18-year old Dan Edmonds of Harlan Pepper did a brief, but magical opening set. I will be watcing for his pending debut album later this summer.
The kitchen and diningroom at the show were a potluck of snacks. Drinks were BYOB. The $20 admission went directly to Anais.
Frustrated with club owners that care more about profits (or just trying to make the rent) than art, and audiences who care more about getting drunk then listening to something genuine and heartfelt, musicians and audiences are beginning to realize that their own homes may often be the best concert venue. Certainly, the overall concert experience is more personal and memorable.
As the music “industry” continues to collapse, I think house concerts (and similar intimate/private venues) will become increasingly common. Those looking to participate may want to start here:
http://www.concertsinyourhome.com
I didn’t get any photos and such from the house concert, but you can get a glimpse of Anais Mitchell and Hadestown in this performance of Why We Build The Wall:
and here is Harlan Pepper, with Dan Edmonds on banjo: