<three minute rant>That’s a self portrait of the artist, Chuck Close. I have it hanging above my bed. It’s one of the strangest photos of anyone I have ever seen. He looks completely out of his mind. I love it, it’s different. Not too many artists would expose themselves in the way that Chuck displayed himself in that photo and I appreciate it even more because of that.
Since I released “Scary Monster with No Hands” some really incredible stuff has happened: I was offered a few shows at universities, lots of blog attention, thousands of downloads, and hundreds of “likes” on hypem.com - so much that it made its way to the top 20 and hung around 18 for a few days. Even a few DJs pawned it off as their own (thanks for the tips btw). Craziness. Especially for someone like myself who has been making mashups over the past three years and has kept 90% of them to myself. SMWNH was different. It was dirty, very raw, and imperfect, but I felt something in the song - there was an energy unlike most of the other stuff I had posted in the past, so I figured I’d give it a go.
I’m extremely grateful for all of the positivity. For every 50 good things, I stumble upon something negative. That’s natural, I mean, I’m not reinventing the wheel, I’m just creating something to add to what is currently out there. I feel like most people - especially people in the mashup community don’t “get me.” For instance, do you really think that I don’t know when something’s in or off key? I have played instruments for over 15 years of my life. There are two things in life that I definitely don’t need: a metronome and a chromatic tuner. Or if something seems saturated by being over amplified, of course I knew it was, I either made it like that or sample it like that - I’m the one staring at the wavelength in the editor window.
For me, I want to evoke emotion. I’m not interested in being cute with my selections, or becoming extremely popular in the mashup community by mashing up the latest bubblegum Lady Gaga pop track with a new Bruno Mars song. I want to create something unpolished and real, something fun to listen to. Most importantly, I spend all of my free time doing this and I release it for free. You can like or dislike my music, download it for free, give it away, or burn my songs to a CD and light it on fire. I really don’t care. I make music for myself and it’s only an added bonus when I find out that someone enjoys it. From the overwhelming response the past few days, I think people are starting to notice.
Thank you to everyone who understands that sometimes it makes more sense not to fit in. </three minute rant>?
