I think it’s time. Time to expand myself, musically. Time to think outside of the box. I want to be done creating tracks that I think I “should” be creating, and just create good music. I want to be done recording every DJ mix as a club demo (“this is what you should expect to hear when I play at a nightclub) and start treating them more like putting albums together…. good albums full of good, moody, emotive music, regardless of genre, tempo, release date or popularity. It’s also time to start putting this blog to some use, for once!
This is going to sound pessimistic or jaded, but it’s really not. I’m just ready to expand and I’m excited about it. I’m ready to move beyond trying to promote these kiddie shows and catering to 47 types of crowd at once without selling my soul (that’s impossible, by the way… at least in a small town). I’m done trying to recreate any particular scene and just do what it is what I want to do… and that’s a liberating feeling. If people start picking up what I’m putting down, fantastic… that’s a lot better than trying to cater to everyone and gaining the interest of nobody because of it.
I’m ready to re-visit making a solid Internet presence for myself, so that if someone wants to find what I have to offer, they can… rather than going through established routes to convince someone to listen to me amongst the thousands of other people screaming for attention via the same route.
I’m ready to start treating everything like art again, instead of trying to put my own twist on established genres, methodologies, scenes, or ideologies. I’m not stopping anything, just changing my approach… and I’m excited. I will still play shows/clubs/events, I will still make dance (and other) music… maybe I will throw the occasional one-off show. I am, however, backing out of the game of promoting weekly/monthly shows, though. That’s something I fell into because of a lack of options, not because it’s where I want to focus all of my time and energy. People know who I am now and they know how to find me. I know who to talk to if I feel like I need to share something musically. Now that I have options, it’s time to get back to why I’m in this in the first place… the music.
I think I want to start a regular podcast or radio show, for putting together mixes so I can still get that out of my system. But I don’t want to do it with the intent of scoring gigs that don’t exist (“well I really want to share Track X, but I better include Track Y, which is dancier… else I’ll lose interest on the dancefloor”)… just for sharing amazing music with people who are feeling it. As I mentioned earlier, I want to put it together as if I were putting together an artist album. Get really down into the nitty gritty and spend a lot of time programming them, adding/removing, cutting up. After all, I got into this because of music PRODUCTION, right? Why shouldn’t I PRODUCE mixes instead of just mixing them?
The thing I enjoy about this whole thing is sharing a piece of myself to a receptive audience. I don’t want to lose sight of that.
Of course I’ll still play dance music, especially at dance-oriented gigs. In fact, I’ll still put together full-on 4×4 dance mixes, too. Just, now, I don’t feel forced to. I still want to rave out sometimes. But lately, the most fun I’ve been having is playing special events… such as the Bachelor Auction for PUSH I played a while back. There were no expectations, they just trusted me on a professional and musical level. And I delivered, and they were happy. And I had them dancing by the end, anyway. But, I got to just share some damn music with some open-minded people who were really receptive to it. Granted, I had the benefit of having someone who knows and trusts me in that department to book me, who knows I’m very professional and I play to the venue and crowd at hand. But, it just feels good to go in somewhere and set a mood rather than do what people expect you to do. After all, what is the point of a live DJ as opposed to an iPod?
So, all this to say… time to start making music for me, playing music for me, maybe throwing events for me… and sharing all of this with people who like it. If you build it, they will come. Or not. But I’m gonna enjoy myself, so either way I win! At a certain point, you realize that you’re trying to force things that aren’t happening into what you want to do, instead of just doing what you actually want to do. That’s where I’m at… and hopefully some of you will be here with me on this journey!
Ahhh, that feels good to get off my chest. Time to have some fun.
