A Long December

A long December and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last. - Counting Crows

Walt Whitman once said, "Re-examine all you have been told... Dismiss what insults your Soul". I am an introspective person, and I have done this more times than I can count. As the year comes to a close I feel I should share what has insulted my soul the most.You guessed it, it has something to do with music. Lots of unknown people on the internet told me this year that I will never make it.

I never got the call I was promised. I never ended up on MTV Europe like I was promised. I sank (and my parents did also because they helped) too much money for empty promises. I know the industry is hard to get into these days, but it should never be this hard. If what I am doing today was out there in the late 80s, early 90s I wouldn't have a reason to write. I would have been signed years ago.

Now, before you laugh, let me explain. Today's music conditions, whatever you want to blame them on, internet, economy, technology, have made it so that you have to be perfect or you get overlooked. Not just by the industry but by the consumer as well. Few people care about originality anymore. They might say otherwise, but they prove it with their paychecks every week. Some of you might say, "what about Justin Bieber? He made it. So it must be your voice."

I'll be the first to admit that my voice sucks. But it's better than a lot of famous artists. The difference between me and them is the recording studio, equipment, and engineer. I barely have something that qualifies as a studio, almost no equipment, and I am not an engineer though I try my best.The other difference is they had the benefit of getting a record deal in a time when a perfect recording wasn't expected. Here are just a few examples of bands and/or artists who vocally sound comparably equal to or worse than me:

Husker Du
Robert Pollard (Guided By Voices)
The Pixies
Beck
Thom Yorke (Radiohead)
PJ Harvey
Sonic Youth
Butthole Surfers
Archers of Loaf
Built To Spill
Smashing Pumpkins
Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails)
The Cranberries

If you said, "But they sound better than you," well of course they do! It is a grave injustice to me to compare my lo-fi home recordings to hi-fi studio recordings of equally lo-fi bands! Just listen to their raw un-produced tracks if you don't believe me. In some cases I sound perfect compared to them. Oh, and the same argument goes for my "sound".

DON'T WRITE ME OFF JUST BECAUSE I DON'T SOUND PERFECT! ...[sigh]... This is what insults my Soul, and I dismiss it.

The nightmarish SOPA hearings

Posted at 03:28 PM ET, 12/15/2011
The nightmarish SOPA hearings
By Alexandra Petri

Last night I had a horrifying dream that a group of well-intentioned middle-aged people who could not distinguish between a domain name and an IP address were trying to regulate the Internet. Then I woke up and the Judiciary Committee’s SOPA hearings markup was on.

It’s exactly as we feared. For every person who appears to have some grip on the issue, there were three or four yelling at him.

“I’m not a nerd,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D- Calif.). “I aspire to be a nerd.”

“I’m a nerd,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).

If I had a dime for every time someone in the hearing markup used the phrase “I’m not a nerd” or “I’m no tech expert, but they tell me . . .,” I’d have a large number of dimes and still feel intensely worried about the future of the uncensored Internet. If this were surgery, the patient would have run out screaming a long time ago. But this is like a group of well-intentioned amateurs getting together to perform heart surgery on a patient incapable of moving. “We hear from the motion picture industry that heart surgery is what’s required,” they say cheerily. “We’re not going to cut the good valves, just the bad — neurons, or whatever you call those durn thingies.”

This is terrifying to watch. It would be amusing — there’s nothing like people who did not grow up with the Internet attempting to ask questions about technology very slowly and stumbling over words like “server” and “service” when you want an easy laugh. Except that this time, the joke’s on us.

It’s been a truism for some time that you can tell innovation in an industry has ceased when the industry starts to develop a robust lobbying and litigating presence instead.

As long as there have been new technologies, the entertainment industry has been trying to get them shut down as filthy, thieving pirates. Video cassettes? Will anyone tune into TV again? MP3 players? Why even bother making a record? Digital video recorder that lets you skip ads? That’s a form of theft!

But SOPA is threatening to touch something far more precious than that — the glorious sprawl of the Internet.

SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, is a bill that, in the name of preventing online piracy of copyrighted work, creates a horrifyingly large censorship authority for the Internet. Among other things, it requires service providers (which have come out opposing the bill) to block access to entire sites if a user on the site is accused of copyright infringement.

There are dozens of reasons this is wrong. The biggest and most pressing is that not only does the bill not do what it sets out to do, it also creates a horrifyingly blunt instrument to censor the Internet.

One of the underlying assumptions of our system of government has always been that even though people mean well now, that doesn’t mean you give them the authority to do terrible things later. The attorney general now may use SOPA in only the most narrowly tailored of cases. But as the Founders knew, it is unwise to give people more powers than you would like them to use.

There ought to be a law, I think, that in order to regulate something you have to have some understanding of it. And when people are saying things like, “This is just the rogue foreign Web sites” and “This only targets the bad actors” and “So you want universities to host illegal pirated versions of copyrighted content?,” it’s enough to make you claw out large fistfuls of your hair. No! No! Nobody is hosting anything. This bill would require service providers to cut off access to entire Web sites where users are deemed to be engaging in copyright infringement, not take down stolen content they posted themselves. That’s already against the law. But no one seemed to be able to express this.

When you have a signed letter from the engineers responsible for creating the Internet pointing out that this bill would jeopardize our cybersecurity, balkanize the Internet and create a climate of uncertainty that would stifle innovation, it seems odd to ignore it. As a general rule, when the people saying that this will have a horrible, chilling impact on something are the ones who created that thing in the first place, and the people who are saying, “Oh, no, it’ll be fine, it only targets the bad actors” are members of the Motion Picture Association of America, it seems obvious whose opinion you should heed.

And the rush to legislate struck many of the committee members as odd. “Haste makes waste,” Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) noted. Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.) asked, “Why is there this rush to judgment?,” noting, “I have rarely been part of a committee operation where we have not had . . . technical experts to deal with major concerns that have arisen.”

This is enough to paralyze a person with dread.

When Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) proposed an amendment to exempt colleges and not-for-profit institutions from the unfunded mandate of having to shut off access to certain sites — like freedom, Internet censorship isn’t free — it was shot down 23 to 9. When he proposed another amendment to target the restrictions not at IP addresses (which, as he noted, can be dynamic and assigned to toasters) but at domain names, it fell just as easily.

This afternoon, the hearings markups continue, with even more amendments. But at the rate it’s going, it looks likely that SOPA will make it to the floor.

I just want the nightmare to be over.

Stop SOPA! A Plea from the Inventors of the Internet

Stop SOPA! A Plea from the Inventors of the Internet

By Tony Bradley, PCWorld

What happens when you combine an overzealous drive to fight Internet piracy, with elected representatives who don’t know the difference between DNS, IM, and MP3? You get SOPA--draconian legislation that far exceeds its intended scope, and threatens the Constitutional rights of law abiding citizens. And it may just pass.
Similar Articles:

An open letter to Congress written by luminaries of the Internet, such as Vint Cerf--co-designer of TCP/IP, and Robert W. Taylor--founder of ARPAnet among others, implores Congress to back off and squash both SOPA, and its sibling PIPA legislation. The letter states, “If enacted, either of these bills will create an environment of tremendous fear and uncertainty for technological innovation, and seriously harm the credibility of the United States in its role as a steward of key Internet infrastructure.”

The letter goes on to ominously caution Congress. “If the US begins to use its central position in the network for censorship that advances its political and economic agenda, the consequences will be far-reaching and destructive.”

Paul Tassi, a sometimes writer for Forbes, makes his primary living from a website he co-founded. Unreality.com is a movie, TV, and gaming review site—a site that relies on linking to clips and screen captures of movies, TV shows, and video games.

Tassi pleads, “The internet is my life now. It’s how I pay my rent and it’s how I’ll support my future family. By passing a law that turns me and millions of others into copyright criminals, there’s no way to sink the economy faster than by shackling the one industry that has more innovation and growth than any other.”

You only really need to know one thing about SOPA to realize that it’s bad legislation that must be stopped: it is supported (and probably written) by the RIAA and MPAA. These organizations are like crotchety old men yelling at the neighbor kids to get off their lawn. But, in this case their "lawn" is the Internet, and instead of "yelling" they’re threatening to fill it with landmines that effectively make it useless.

It is almost 2012. It has been nearly 30 years since services like Prodigy and America Online introduced the mainstream world to the Internet. It has been almost 20 years since Netscape came on the scene, and the Web took the world by storm. It is no longer tolerable for an elected representative to be clueless about how the Internet works. It’s just not acceptable.

If the bill passes, it could have devastating, cascading consequences that ripple across the Internet and affect the freedom and civil liberties of every citizen of the United States. It seems our current elected representatives may just be dumb and/or crazy enough to pass it, though—so speak up and let your representative and senators know what you think of SOPA.

New Tunes

Joy #4

Joy #3

A piano melody pulled straight from my heart. This is from the movie "The Baxter". The song is "Hero" by El May. It is a joy to hear that there are still songs produced in that obscure 80s and 90s underground (but not really) style. If that even makes sense.

Joy #2

Joy #1

Break Dance Robot

Again I say turn down your volume before watching this. Robot Rock.

http://jayztothe.ytmnd.com/

Beavis and Butthead Are Still Cool

( ._.) 

Turn down your volume for this one. Seriously.

http://dirtbuster.ytmnd.com/

If He Can Do It Then So Can I

Beck had to do wild songs by himself to get noticed. I did the same thing differently. I made a pop album (in my style) to get noticed. (Still not quite sure if it worked.)

Once Beck got noticed he was able to eventually get to do songs he always wanted to do like this one off his 2002 album Sea Change. I only pray that everything works as well for me (if not better)!

If They Can Do It Then So Can I

Proof that musical dreams do come true. The Smashing Pumpkins won awards for this song (Tonight, Tonight) and the music video that was done for it. I believe this is them performing at the Grammy's. If you listen to the original recording of this song it sounds like it was recorded late at night in Billy's bathroom. It sounds no better or worse than any of my recording. The only thing different is he had a studio, band, and record producers who could help bring what was in his head to reality, and bring the song to its full potential. Soon, God willing, I will have that too!

You Will Be On MTV Europe

It's 12:59 in the a.m. and I can't sleep. I got a little restless wondering what was going on with my album so I called "Scoe" one last time and left a message. I say one last time because I don't see any reason to continue calling if my calls aren't getting returned. ...Maybe he'll call back this time.

Nothing I'm writing right now is meant to be a downer, I'm just writing. In fact, I am in high spirits! I really believe that my life is finally making a turning point for the better! I'm not even worried about what might happen because I know that what is best is what's going to happen. We have the power to change the universe around us and it comes down to our thoughts, words, and emotions.

My thoughts are of a successful music career. That thought alone, of being able to do what I love the most for a living, brings me great joy. I can't help but smile! I think that if you want something to come to pass you need to have faith and act as if you already have it. But that doesn't mean pretending. I think it means you need to imagine yourself where you want to be and imagine what it would feel like if you were already there. It takes a lot of emotional control because you have to put aside all the negative emotions that tell you it will never happen. My words (though I'm not always good at this) reflect my thoughts and emotions.

I was told by "Scoe" last year that I will be on MTV Europe this year, and that I needed to believe it. I told him I did, and I still do. We are getting close to the last quarter of the year to release new music. So unless we go on a crash course to release my album (or at least a single) and shoot a music video so that it makes sense that I'm on MTV Europe, unless you want me to stand in a room waving at the camera for three minutes, we are too late.

But you know what? I believe in God and He is never late. NEVER. I have had that proven to me more times than I can count, and I have witnesses who can testify to that. Some of them have even wished that God would not come through so that they could prove to me once and for all that He didn't exist. Guess what. He came through at the last possible minute and proved to them that He did exist. I see my current situation as being no different. God is never late so I am confident in saying right now that I will be on MTV Europe before the year is through! Don't believe me? Just watch. I'll be announcing it as soon as it happens.

Update, June 02, 2012: I was never on MTV Europe before the year was through. So what does this mean? I can't say God doesn't exist, because this is the first time I've experienced Him not coming through when I thought He would. I do believe He is never late, so when things do happen, it will all make sense. But it doesn't right now. Some could say that my confidence is misplaced or I'm misguided, but I would say that I have always silently prayed that above all else, God's Will was done in my life. Maybe it's not God's Will. Maybe it is, but not the appointed time yet. Whatever the case may be, my faith is still strong and unwavering. If that makes me seem more foolish to some of you, then so be it. I make no apologies. 

Fed Raids Gibson Guitars At Gunpoint

Gibson Guitar, of all companies, has been the target of multiple raids – at gunpoint – by the Federal Government for alleged importation of illegal wood. Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz is claiming the Feds told him that his problems would ‘go away’ if the company used Madagascar labor. Juszkiewicz called into the radio program today and spoke with Glenn about the situation on radio today. Check out the interview in the clip above.

Matthew Dean Shaffer #9

[sigh in text form]

Sub Pop

Okay, I've contacted Sub Pop. I don't know why it has taken me so long to do this.They are really a more perfect fit for me than Def Jam or Island (sorry guys, you took too long to get back to me).

I hope I hear back sooner this time around. ...you know, it would be fun to be on the same label that inspired me to become a musician and do things my way more than 15 years ago! Of course, this is me trying to be positive. I've been rejected in one form or another for a long time now. It's hard to keep picking myself up and going for it again.

You know who else inspired me? Sonic Youth.

Matthew Dean Shaffer #8

Matthew Dean Shaffer #7

How many cups does it take to get some service around here! ...oh wait. [sips coffee, thinks to self, gets up, refills coffee in kitchen, sits back down]. Why is it whenever I try to think of lyrics (my own or someone else's), the first thing in my head is: "Two jumps in a week, perhaps you think that's pretty clever, don't you boy?" Those are lyrics from Radiohead's album The Bends. It's the song High and Dry. I don't really like that song that much, and I haven't even heard it in maybe ten years, or possibly longer. And I usually don't remember lyrics to songs. I wonder what they did to make the lyrics stick..... Maybe that's why they are inextricably famous in a common world of strict formulas. Hmm...... Maybe it's some weird frequency that the government can use to -Wait! I don't want that! ...Come to think of it, someone is listening. It might be coincidence, but I've been noticing this a lot lately; I've been getting junk mail related to things I've talked about to people in person, not online, not on the phone, but in person. I haven't even done searches for these things. I have had no activity online for a bot or whatever they use to get information to find this stuff out about me. The most recent example is I needed new tires for the borrowed (from my mom) car that I'm driving. My dad told me, again in person, that he would get me some tires this weekend. The next day I get emails for tires, used cars, new cars. I have never received a single email about cars or tires until now. Okay. Again, it could just be coincidence, but here's another example. I was talking to a few people (in person) about the need for residual income. The next day I receive an email that states, "Your friend residual income has sent you a message". Obviously that's one of those emails that you get when someone is phishing info from your searches. The creepy thing about this one is I have never searched for anything even remotely related to residual income, not even for anything related to the individual words "residual" or "income". This one makes me feel a bit paranoid. I could say that if someone really wanted to sell me something they could be eaves dropping on my conversations when I'm outside. But, and this is the kicker, I only talked about residual income twice, and both times I was in the car driving.

Seven and A Half Months and Finally An Update

...but it's not a big one. I was finally able to get through and leave a voice message on Anthony "Scoe"'s phone. I hope he has good news. I absolutely don't want to find out that my getting on MTV Europe was a lie.

That's it. But that won't be it. I'm staying positive, and for me even a worse case scenario is better than where I am now. I am going to make it! You'll see.

Four Months Today and A Free Download

Four months and still no word from Def Jam or Island Records. I have started contacting other record companies again. Hoping to hear back from Sub Pop.

I really need a breakthrough soon. I had to sell furniture to finish covering the rent a couple of months back, and I've been putting off getting new glasses for over six months. I thought I finally was able to get something as simple as that, but my car tags renewal notice came in the mail. That's top priority, so there went my glasses money for this month. Maybe next month, but I don't know. I have to take an extra $50 out of every paycheck (I get paid once a month) to cover taxes for next year. That pretty much takes all the extra I have after I pay bills. I have no debt, and I only have three bills to pay every month, so I'm actually in good shape that way, but I just don't make enough money. I sacrificed everything for music. It was and still is my passion. I just need a major breakthrough.

Some people have been telling me lately that my music is complete and utter crap; that I shouldn't bother waiting for a record deal, because it is never going to come. Maybe, but I was signed once with a former band and I'm way better than they ever were. I also toured for several years and even made it to England. If it could be done then, then it could definitely be done now!

I also contacted some recording studios in town to get my foot in the door some other way. Haven't heard back from anyone yet.

All this lack of interest, response, or even eagerness from others sure gets my hopes up (he says sarcastically). ...sigh....I really hope the naysayers are totally and completely wrong about me.

I've been reworking the post production on my most recent album, "The Lemon Revolution". It is less harsh, and has a warmer "feel" to the overall sound. I put together a meta album complete with artwork, lyrics, and artist notes. Here's a free link to download it. Please enjoy it and share it with everyone you know:  Buzzhead Republic - The Lemon Revolution

Tired Pony - Dead American Writers

This band is produced in one of the ways I want to hear my music produced. Oh I wish I was getting help with this right now.

Prorate video

Run Lola Run video

Three Months and Fifteen Days

It has now been three and a half months since I went to the Def Jam/ Island Records music showcase. I still have not heard back from anyone even though they said they would contact me. ....I don't know what to think. I just don't. I believe I'm really good, and I would only be better with the help of professionals. And, I know my sound is different, but I'm sure it has high market ability in Europe.

There have been times when I have felt like giving up, but I can't give up now. Not when I am this close. It has been hard though, to keep hanging on; and going through the same hard routine day in and day out, hoping against hope that it is just a matter of time. In trying to stay focused and positive I have been envisioning what I want.

This is what I see:

I quit my job as a janitor.
I am recording my first album with Island Records.
I am doing studio and production work for Def Jam.
I have the same producer that My Bloody Valentine had (and that Nine Inch Nails had on "The Fragile").
I am touring all over the world but primarily Europe promoting my new album.
I have multiple hit songs on the radio and music videos on MTV Europe and elsewhere.
I went to the dentist and didn't get turned away because I didn't have enough money.
I bought a car so I wouldn't have to borrow one anymore.
I hired a caregiver to help my disabled mom while I am gone on tour, and recording, and being busy with my career.
I am not a one hit wonder.
I have a life long career doing what I love.
I continue to use what I have been blessed with to bless others, but in even greater ways than before.

Those thoughts (and more personal ones) are what keep me going on. I know it will happen! It has to happen!

Here is a new song and video I finished today:

New Video: Goodbye To All That Was To Be

 This is pretty much what my life feels like right now.

Matthew Dean Shaffer #6

Dear Sirs,

     Alright! Enough is enough! Let's get things rolling... NOW!

Sincerely,
Matthew Dean Shaffer, aka Rooster

Two Months Today, and A Song By Me

It has been two months today since I went to the Def Jam conference. I thought I was supposed to get a call from someone, Anthony, Lenny, Def Jam, Island, someone, anyone, within a couple of weeks. I have tried calling several times, but the mail box is always full. Haven't received any emails from them either. I thought I was showing a lot of patience by waiting this long .....I know, it's not that long in the music business. I may have to wait several more months. I guess I'm just frustrated because I re-injured my back at work this week. I don't have a bad back, it just gets strained from time to time because of the work I do. My job is not worth the pain I am in right now! If I was in pain doing the job I was created for, it would be like nothing at all!! Music is fun to me. No aspect of it feels like work. It is just pure joy. And that's all I want to do with my life. Well, anyway, I'm going to make up some lyrics right now:


Too many more days to go
And I'm running out of show
And there's nowhere else to go
But I'm feeling kind of uneasy

The cupboards came today
Let's all go out and play

All of these things have passed
And our future is in our past
And we gave in way to fast
But I'm feeling kind of lazy
All the battles are in the fist
And I'm keeping track with this list
And today was what I wished
But tomorrow is kind of hazy

The cupboards came today
Let's all go out and play


I think I will call this song  Go Out and Play.

Matthew Dean Shaffer #5

I hope everything is alright.

My Top Songs of 2010

Pictures of the Floating World inspired me to make my own list of the top songs of 2010. I know it's a little late for a New Year retrospective blog post but what the hey. There is no particular order to these songs. They are just songs that inspired me and/or I could relate to. Usually I don't pay attention to the lyrics because I like to study the music (you know because I'm also a musician). There are a few songs that I liked for the lyrics though.

1)My Bloody Valentine - Cupid Come, (When You Wake) You're Still In A Dream, I Can See It (But I Don't Feel It. This is one of my favorite bands of all time. Their guitar tunesmithery (new word!) is still inspiring even after 22 years. Coincidentally, they had the same producer that Nine Inch Nails used for The Fragile album. I didn't know this when I started obsessively studying The Fragile and the My Bloody Valentine albums, Isn't Anything and Loveless for my personal music. Going a little off the beaten path can really help you get creative with your own music. On Wikipedia I just found out that My Bloody Valentine were signed to Island Records, which is the same company looking at my music. Now I really want to be signed to Island, considering also that I want the same producer! Favorite for this year is I Can See It (But I Don't Feel It).

2)Nine Inch Nails - No You Don't, The Great Below, The Perfect Drug, The Beginning of the End, Survivalism, Capital G, The Great Destroyer, In This Twilight. Favorite for this year is In This Twilight.

3)The Black Eyed Peas - Meet Me Halfway. I was listening to a lot of Europop/Synthpop this year. This was my favorite.

4)Built To Spill - Kicked It In the Sun. I like the lyrics. My favorite lines are from the second half of the song:
it's alright now I'm getting over getting mine
it's alright now I'm getting over getting mine

he seemed so unashamed of how he operated
corresponds to the facts that you want
despite his expectations
he turned out mediocre
his master plan was so so
we're special in other ways
ways our mothers appreciate
that net does not make me feel safe
all those holes make me nervous

he woke up late that morning
went to the window and saw the sun had stopped its shining
so so
we're special in other ways
ways our mothers appreciate
we're special in other ways
ways our mothers appreciate
we're special
we're special

5)Courtney Love - Letter To God, Pacific Coast Highway, Happy Ending Story, For Once In Your Life. This album, Nobody's Daughter, is autobiographical, and I think she wrote it while in rehab. The lyrics also suggest that she found God.

6)The Frame - Sad Songs. Makes me cry every time I hear it. Seriously, I can't listen to it at work because of this. These are the lyrics of a man resigned to his fate, giving up ever making it. Incidentally, he did end up making it. It is inspiring because I feel like I'm where he was before he made it.

7)Girls Against Boys - Wow Wow Wow. Another sonic flood of tunesmithery. I literally looped this for two hours one day.

8)Johnny Cash - Solitary Man. I have the original version by Neil Diamond on vinyl, and I like that just as much. You'd have to spend a day in my shoes to understand why I like this.

9)Local H - Lovey Dovey. A song about others being in love when you are not.

10)Mission Of Burma - That's When I Reach For My Revolver. Obscure Punk/Alternative band from the 80s. It has a good feeling kind of like the Kids In the Hall theme. I also swear I heard this when I was a kid but can't think of when or where, or how for that matter.

11)Nada Surf - Popular, Do It Again. Strangely, Popular is more relevant than it was when I was in school. I really just like everything about Do It Again including the lyrics. Favorite line is: 'Maybe this weight was a gift, like I had to see what I could lift.'

12)No Longer Micah - Fractured, Restored. These lyrics are perfect. They really couldn't be written any better.

13)Orbit - Carnival. Great lyrics, great music. Nice and loud 90s Alternative/Grunge.

14)Pixies - Wave of Mutilation, Monkey Gone To Heaven. I like the lyrics of both songs, but the sound of Monkey Gone To Heaven is fantastic.
.
15)Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet - Having An Average Weekend. The Kids In the Hall theme. Need I say more? ...Makes me feel like a kid again.

16)The Sundays - Goodbye, Love, Blood On My Hands. 90s Alternative girl rock.

17)Paramore - The Only Exception. Great lyrics for the most part. I wrote a blog about this song. Line most like me: 'And I've always lived like this, keeping a comfortable distance, and up until now I had sworn to myself that I'm content with loneliness.'

18)Pavement - Cut Your Hair. About change. The music video shows them sitting in the waiting room of life. Waiting to cut their hair. Grow up. Come of age. Change. This song gets more relevant the older I get.

19)Flyleaf - Missing.

20)Roisin Murphy - You Know Me Better. Has a good familiar feel to it.

21)Whale - Hobo Humpin' Slobo Babe. Obscure 90s Alternative/ Grunge/ Hip Hop band. This is the only song I can find to put on my mp3 player. They had a unique sound. An entire genre could be built around them. They were very inspiring to me. The same goes for the last entry:

22)Tricky - Hell Is Around the Corner. Great 90s British Hip Hop.

Back To Work

I didn't have to work yesterday because it was called off due to snow. It's good to get an extra day off to do something I really want to do, like write music. I got a really great new melody going! It has some jazz chords in it too, so it's a lot of fun to play!!

It's back to work today....(sigh).... I really wish I knew what was going on with my album in the hands of Island Records. It would be nice to have some solid knowledge that I won't be working at my crap job for the rest of my life. ...Is it sad that I can feel my heart breaking every time the weekend is over?

Buzzhead Republic Players (You Can Share These)

New Widget Shows My Press

Waiting Isn't Easy But Hope Is

I want to write something but not sure how to start...

Two hours till I have to leave for work. I'm not ready for having to do that crap job again. I haven't been ready all week, but somehow I keep getting through it. I'm tired. Tired of getting paid a third of what my work experience says I should get paid. Tired of working my butt off while everyone else goes on vacation, and when they come back, only getting a complaint about not doing something that I did do. Work is work. I know that. There's no expectation of a thank you for doing what I am paid to do; but I do the work of three people more efficiently than some coworkers do the work of just one. If that makes any sense. Occasionally, I get a note left by someone that recognizes that I have to do more work because of the unusually large mess they made that day. Such notes are few and far between, and they help, even if just a little. But I'm tired.

Being tired has sometimes been the only thing that has driven me to keep writing music. It's my ticket out, and it's all I know to do. One day I will be famous. The wait is just hard. Some might say I'm delusional, especially if they have heard my older material. But I got invited to a showcase by a top A&R president or vice-president. I can't remember but he's top; and a major label was there too. I won't mention names or labels because I don't want to somehow ruin everything by writing this. It was my impression that they really liked what I was doing. One of them kept saying I'd be on MTV Europe next year (now this year). Maybe I miss heard this; it is possible, I was in shock at this point, shock that the big guys liked what I was doing. One of them said don't worry. I'm trying not to. It's just been almost a month since this happened and I still haven't heard from anyone. Many of my friends say that these are big names and because of this they are in no big hurry to contact me. I'm trying to be patient. It's just hard when I've spent 16 years working to get to this point, and now I'm in some sort of limbo.

I don't want this to sound negative and maybe it's too late. I really am feeling positive and hopeful. I know everything will work out. The way I see it, delayed blessings and or dreams can be a test. A test of patience, trust, faith, maybe just so others can see that you won't give up and quit. I will never quit! One day I will be famous! (for all the right reasons of course) I hope I don't have much longer to wait.

Oh. Just a last little thing. Here's a photo of one of the few notes I have received. I think it's funny that the thank you is plural, when there has been only one person (me) doing all the work in this area (location kept vague on purpose) for over a year.

Crapbook One (1998-2006) pgs 43-74