‘Morning, listeners. Bit late starting. Sorry. Here’s the Flaming Groovies.’
– Helen Garner, ‘Did he pay?’ from Postcards from Surfers

As an incurable romantic, and a sort of delusional lazybones, my position has always been that good music, once generated, will eventually find its audience. The quality of the work will, in the end, override the media saturation that pervades today’s world, and bring it to the top of the pile. Perhaps the artist will have to, like, die first – that’s been known to happen before. But all the same, distinctive artistic product will earn the place it deserves in people’s affection and amass eternal respect in the process.

This is such utter horseshit, let’s be honest. Where does it come from? It’s so obviously the most indulgent variety of wishful thinking available, and so manifestly untrue. Why not go one better and emulate Juan Antonio’s dad in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, making your perfect, beautiful pieces and then keeping them to yourself? Then you’re untouchable. No-one deserves your superior craftsmanship anyway.

News flash: self-promotion is not, it seems, in my character. I have the gift neither for talking big about myself nor for seeing endless opportunities to talk so. I know there are people who are stunningly capable in this area, and rise to a sort of ruthlessness in their pushing of the barrow. And I’m sure they’re doing well and I wish them health and happiness. But it ain’t me.

Which is why it’s taken me so long to re-inaugurate my YouTube channel and put some of my work up for people to hear there. Maybe about seven years ago I was doing a bit of this and even filmed a standard tune each week. Then I got tired of that and took them all down. But it’s impossible to ignore reality, and although my very brief flirtation with Spotify has been concluded, thirteen cents later, it seems that YouTube is a reasonable way to advertise. At least there you can choose which tracks people can hear for nix and don’t have to go giving away entire albums.

Here is my channel. https://www.youtube.com/user/pixisnix – there’s even an icon you can click right here!

‘Morning, listeners. Bit late starting.’ But go along, subscribe! It’s mostly stuff off albums just now but there is one otherwise unrecorded original and I’ll do a bit more filming by and by. This is the effort I can make.

In other news, I went for a job. This called for a large measure of unaccustomed self-aggrandisement. I did my best, but I didn’t get it. hashtag disappointed hashtag a bit cross hashtag bored

20/vi/2017

With the feeling you’ve done good work comes the desire to share it with your fellow-travellers. It could be argued that this is egotism – the ‘look at me!’ impulse. ‘I’ve done this great thing; notice me! Congratulate me!’ and so forth. It’s easy to imagine that any commendation for the work one has done makes it feel worthwhile, adds to its personal value by demonstrating a meaningfulness to others. Or maybe it’s actually kinder than that. ‘You might get something from this. Would you like to try it?’ ‘I made this thing. Would you like a little piece?’ ‘Will you listen to how I was feeling, and what I made? Can we share it?’ ‘Will you tell me how you feel?’

I have had my struggles with what I’ve perceived as an under-appreciation of work I’ve done. Most simply: no-one came. I didn’t sell any records. There appeared to be no interest in the project. Further on: that reviewer wrote dumb, ignorant things. Too many people said ‘hey, you’ve got a new album out!’ rather than ‘I actually heard your album, and thought/felt/experienced [this]’. The airplay I received was not in balance with the quality and distinctiveness of the work.

I try to tell myself: if you played even to one or two people who actually engaged with the work, who took the trouble to listen seriously to what you were producing, who allowed the feelings evoked to occupy their heart and their mind even for a moment, you had done something valuable. You had given, you had shared, you had exchanged.

But this preoccupation is poisonous. The will to continue is a fragile thing; furthermore it does seem true that nothing nurtures it more than an impression that people have received and valued what you have made so far. Without that, are you disposed to keep going? If a tree falls and no-one is there, is there any point to koans?

Which is where you are witness to the value of irony and the damn’ necessity of pulling the piss.

Thank you for reading.

‘before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.’ – Samuel Beckett

9/vi/2017