Commercialization Of Music

I've realized that I am truly against this hardcore commercialism of music.

I mean, I totally understand putting up a flyer for your band's show, getting the word out to your fanbase, but I think that what makes music what it is are the motivations of the people that are making it.

When I play a show, I don't want to see a crowd full of "potential fanbase". When I play a show, I want to make a connection with myself and whoever is listening. I consider a show a success if even just one person in the crowd is really feeling a song I'm playing. If even one person is listening to a song and remembering something that happened to them, or realizing that they have felt the same way before, or even if someone is listening hard enough to critique me, I believe the show is a success. I'm not into making whatever music will get me a few bucks and some chicks to follow me around. If those are your motivations, that's totally fine. I think your music will reflect that.

I pour my heart and soul into my songs. Even if I am playing for a crowd of people, I think what I'm doing is an extremely personal endeavour. My ideas about music are entwined with my religious views. I believe there is a connection between all human beings, one that we can't fully explain, one that we attempt to explain through religion. The ideas that are put in front of me about God or religion as an explanation for things we don't understand do not satisfy me. I don't feel fulfilled. Many people say they feel a connection with God. I have friends that say they can speak to God, have conversations with Him, He guides their lives. I would love to have that kind of faith, to feel that kind of connection so easily, but its simply not there.

The closest thing to this kind of connection, for me, is music, or any creative art form. Two people, devoting every ounce of emotion in their bodies and feeling, for even a moment, at complete peace with one another. I think that's an amazing thing, and once I had experienced that, I no longer saw any reason in not trying to recreate it.

So here I am, making music.

That is why it really bothers me to see performances reduced to sideshow attractions, numbers on a page, financial income, generic noise packaged and sold in bulk to hungry consumers who will hopefully throw their money at t-shirts and refreshments at an impersonal mockery of music called a show.

I guess I just have to be careful what I pursue.