So what exactly do you do again?

It has been impressed upon me that I've got to market myself, promote the brand, etc. It makes sense and it's the world we live in. The question then becomes how? Generally, you're young when you start down this path and your audience is young too, but the idea that I can still market myself to the young is both counter-productive and to be honest, a little creepy.

The other route is based on the idea that you should market to those who share a love of the music of known artists that you sound like or emulate. That seems reasonable except that the groups and artists I like or whose music I've drawn inspiration from, their fans are probably not that into artists they've never heard of and aren't interested in hearing something that sounds like their favorite music when they can just go back and listen to the tracks from their favorite bands catalog. Why should I listen to someone who sounds like the Beatles when I can just listen to the Beatles?

The third option is the genre route; meaning which genre do I fit into. The problem there is the music I make is basically pop-rock stuff with some country and americana thrown in when I go acoustic. And pop-rock has fractured into literally a minefield of sub-genres from the genera of pop and rock, not to mention country, folk, americana, jazz, ECM, hip-hop, rap, and bluegrass. Somehow I have to decide where I fit in in this miasma of choices.

It makes my head hurt.

But that's the nature of music today. Mostly it's just music played on guitars, keyboards, and drums. I like to throw in dream-pop, electric folk, indie rock; I play a lot of different stuff, but I do have my own sound, which is important; sometimes more important than a particular description.

Still, we march on; we figure it out; we have day jobs.

Maybe I should focus on tee shirts?

Year Two of Mr Primitive's Revival

I survived my first year back in the world of music. I suppose if the first period of my work had been more widely experienced things might be different, but in truth I had no interest in that at that time. My only interest was in creating the music. My fascination was in seeing what I could come up with and once I was satisfied with it; it was done and it was time to move on to the next song. I disappointed Brian in not including him more and I was stubborn in wanting the songs to be a certain way. And once I began feeling like I had nothing new to say; that I was repeating myself, going over the same ground, I stopped.

The question of why bring it back, of why begin again, is in the idea of the worth of the material; are the songs any good? It took me a long time to believe that they are; that there is merit in the work. It's odd to come to terms with something like that. You would think that once something is done, that once it is finished-and you did this-it's good. I don't have any unfinished music from that period. If I liked something, I finished it. If I didn't, I erased it; this was all back in the pre-digital age for me.

I haven't the slightest idea what 2017 will bring or how much more money I'll need to spend to become the legend I was meant to be. I do know that more of the Seattle period will be released, as well as the Denver period, the early stuff from 1980 to 1984. There will be new stuff, for me, for everyone else it's all new. Maybe I should have been more proactive in the 80's, but what I did in the 80's wasn't quite 80's pop or rock, oddly more in line with later pop and rock idioms, and therefore problematic when it comes to marketing etc.

It may still be problematic today in that there is much to swim through, but I'm there on Spotify and Pandora and the other streaming services and maybe some will take a chance and listen. I plan on continuing to perform and put out music and I'll do what I can to get the word out, but I'm still some sorta old dude now and that matters. But you never know. You write, you record, you preform; it works out. Someday I leave my family my catalog and they look at it and wonder:

What do we do with this?

It Was as It Ever Was

A year ago, being tugged along by mortality, I decided to get back into that music thing. I had finished the first new recordings in nearly 30 years and felt that it was now or never if I was to ever get them out into the public sphere. So I had the masters copy-written, art work commissioned, and journeyed out among the stars. I have released 2 honest to God albums, one, Apologia, from my Seattle period, 1985 to 1991, and the latest, We Three, from the present, which I refer to as the apocryphal period because it sounds fun. From those who listened I got plenty of likes, which I expected because the music is actually quite good. That may seem big headed, but I'm no rube and after more than 50 years of listening to just about everything I know good from mediocre and bad, and, as they say; if you don't believe in your work; who will.

I started performing again, mostly at open mics, to test the waters and find out if I could breath under water; all in all it was a lot of fun and I found that there a lot of my material I'd like to perform. I also realized that I'm not quite like the other performers and songwriters as far as material goes. That's not to say that their work was somehow lesser; to the contrary, I found it very interesting and enjoyable, just different. I'm not really a story teller as a songwriter. I think a better description is poet/emotionalist; a deeply pretentious way to say I sing to my own heart and and any others that wants to come along for the ride.

That then brings me to the direction of the upcoming year. I have a new group of songs I'm recording, and a whole slew of earlier recordings I desire to foist upon an unsuspecting public. The always percolating question is: where is this all going? If I were younger and had stars in my eyes, the answer might be to become famous and loved and wealthy beyond my wildest imagining, but I'm to jaundiced to buy into that. Yes, I went to Hollywood for the ASCAP conference and had a great time and hung around with all the other artistic types longing for the succor of recognition and acknowledgement, but I learned long ago that I was an uncompromising non-conventionalist in a business that has no time for that because there's no money in it.

At least not anymore. It came and went with the 60's.

I do though have a hunger to be represented in my art, whether in music or word, and without a presence that representation doesn't exist. So I have my website, mrprimitivemusic, as a repository of my work and a deep catalog which I will continue to add to because it's what I am. The problem is the catalog because it is ready to be heard, but there's a lot of stuff there, 8 completed albums, one that needs to be re-recorded, and the new songs; all waiting for me to get to it. There is also the rather daunting task of how or whether to get the word out, and not just a few folks out there would be happy to help for a small fee; results to be determined. Is the shell out worth the price? Will it make any difference? Perhaps we'll see.

The more important point is that there is a place for people to go if they so choose. At some point that's all I can ask, because i know if you go, you will dig it.

Now that I'm famous again!

It has now been about a year since I made my triumphant return to the music business and taken my rightful place among the protean giants, whatever that means. I've released 2 albums, gotten out of my comfort zone and returned to live performing, joined a number of professional associations, songwriters forums and groups, went to the ASCAP conference in Hollywood to hobnob with all the other desperate musical types trying to make good in these very interesting times, and reconnected with those publications, websites, and newsletters that keep me in tune with what I need to do to really get my music out there and make money and accept that statistically I don't stand a chance in hell of ever being anything more than an old guy pumping out very good records that no one will hear.

All very uplifting.

Minus the faux desperation, it has been a lot of fun. If you step back from the idiocy of trying to be a pop star, and, fortunately, most of the performers and songwriters I've meet aren't goo-eyed over becoming the next Taylor Swift, and are making an incredible array of interesting music. It's amazing how many people are out there making music; having fun and making the world a better place. All different styles and playing abilities, youngsters and oldsters grooving to the tunes, and proving that pulling out the earbuds and sitting back and listening to a person or persons playing live right in front of you is the best, whether it's Sting and Peter Gabriel or the kid playing his or her new song for the very first time in front of strangers.

All very uplifting.

I've added a few new items to my recording studio, electronic drums, some new effects, and a deep blue Rickenbacker 12 string. I writing and recording new songs, which is thrilling given how long I went between records, twenty some years, it nice to know that I can still write a song.

Speaking of writing songs, I've so far resisted the idea that I should do anything other than what comes naturally to me; I write what I write; I like what comes out and I know what's good, I'm not terribly concerned if it jibes with what the hit makers say because the hit makers contradict one another and say you should do something that stands out even if everything you hear them make sound depressingly the same. Which is too bad, but there is great music out there; whatever the state of pop music, the rest of music world churns right along, and if you spend a little time out there on the internet, you'll find more great music that you can ever listen to.

There's a lot of crap too, but that's life.

Is that really just you?

Rather than talk about all the excitement that goes into putting together a website, something I'm not actually excited about either, I thought it would be more interesting to talk about how I come up with all these great tunes all by myself...

Then again, maybe not.

However, I do find that people are surprised when they hear the music and that I did it by myself. Some of that is simple economics; as someone who records at home and works at it in fits and starts, it's much easier than trying to coordinate say a band, with different individuals with their own time restrictions and commitments, not to mention their own ideas about how the songs should sound.

As for how I come up with a song, mostly, like other musicians or songwriters, it comes from playing, be it a guitar or keyboard or drums/percussion. If I like something, I'll keep working on it till I know it well enough to remember it the next day or as I did in the old days, I get the basic tracks recorded.

Then I begin adding other sounds; bass, more guitars, vocals, whatever I find fits, and I find that out through experimentation. The fun in having a lot more tracks to play with ( 24 now versus 4 in the past ) and the sounds that come from the GR-55, a guitar synth, or just running the guitars through the outboard equipment I have, an Effectron 2, an Alesis Midiverb, and old school stomp boxes like a Rat or a wahwah pedal.

I'm certainly not a virtuoso musician, but I'm good enough for what I want to do or create, and I'm willing to work out parts as I need them. I also feel that I have a very good sense of production as far as what I want to accomplish with a particular sound or song.

Pretty boring.

But it works for me.

Now What?

     Alright!    

     Now that all your songs ( or in this case mine ) are ready, willing, and able to be heard; the next step, naturally, is how are you going to get the music out to the wider audience so you can bask in the glory and praise you so richly deserve? In the old days you would send out tapes, of varying quality, to anyone you thought might be interested ( vinyl albums from someone other than a label in those days was a vanity project and very expensive ), play a lot of gigs; good and bad, put flyers on poles and walls; all of which you can still do, in hopes of landing a recording contract for the low low price of your publishing rights, royalties, dubious accounting practices, an advance you may or may not be able to ever repay, and your soul.
     Don't laugh!
     More than a few bands have tales of woe at the hands of the record machine.
     Those tales also include being told all the ways you have to change your look and sound in order to make the big bucks dancing around in your head. It wasn't for the weak or timid. That may or may not explain why you might believe some artists are self absorbed jerks. It is what it is.

     Now with the Internet and digital recording that are relatively easy and affordable, you can be your own man or woman. Or if you're someone like me sitting on a trove of recordings, you can get those out for everyone who's interested in hearing them. The question is which way are you going to go? There are any number of sites that caters to starving musicians and bands that promise to get your music out there. You also need a social media presence, preferably more than one, and then there's the delivery platforms for the music itself: CD's, vinyl, downloads, either in full sonic clarity or compressed, and you need art and graphics to go along with the music.
     For me, I asked my son, Yuji, to do the artwork:

     This is the cover art for the first album I'm releasing: Apologia. I always had a thing for bands that had artists do their album covers, so my plan was to have a series of paintings for the albums that are as interesting as the music. I have no interest in plastering my sad mug on the cover. Once the artwork was done I went with Discmakers to make a limited run of CD's and went through them with for the digital distribution on iTunes, Amazon, Soundcloud, Spotify, etc. That takes time and money. That's the other thing; getting your music out ain't free.

     Next: I need a website.

Because you've got to know!

     I'm one of those people who has no problem creating, whether songs or, of late, stories. That of course is once I get my act together and do it. My normal process is to ruminate about it in my head and then when the procrastination becomes too much, I work; and once I start I work till it's finished. I'm not a 'it's half done, let's sit on it for a while' type.
     I started making music in my teens, and have continued writing over the years, although after 1991, I took a long break after finishing the 10th album. Most of the albums were written and recorded between 1984 and 1987; 7 of them to be exact. That's a lot of work in a short period of time. And once I was done, it was; well now what?
     Mostly I sat on them. I'd take them out every so often and listen to them, but they were on cassette tapes and cassette tape, like all tapes, wear thin as do the tape heads, the motors, etc. In the digital age, as much as some delight in the analog sound, its limitations remain, and I was tired of those limitations. I thought they still sounded good, given that they were recorded on a 4-track cassette portastudio, but all I had were the mixes and they were precious to me.

     Then one day I decided that maybe I should do something with them.

     That something was transferring the originals to a digital format. From there, you can do any number of things in any number of formats. So I asked a friend to transfer them, and he did; plus he ran them through a mastering program.

     Thank you so very much, Dave Howe. The songs sounded better than ever, or as good as they would ever sound. It made me think....bigger.

     At this point the artist; that would be me, begins to have all kinds of flights of fancy, all revolving around the idea of becoming.....known for your work, your music! Every artist's dream.

     Now the fact that I am now in my middle years doesn't auger well for such dreams, but we can, well, dream. So, in that little journey I'm bringing along anyone who wants too tag along. the first step is what to release when...

     Stay tuned.