False Gods & Easy Roads – Do you follow them? Are you giving your Best?

No this isn’t about religion as such. It is about how things that we are doing may be things that people before us have seen happen before and warned against. Yet on we go with strategies that have failed before as though they will work otherwise for us.

Moses went up the mountain – did something hard, put in the effort to get the good goods – only to come down to find his peeps zonked out at a party around a golden calf, or EDM Tent, or swimming pool up on Mulholland Drive. Moses was then said to have a cow of his own – a hissy fit in which he said screw you all and smashed some of the work he just did to get his peeps to a better place: the Land of Rape & Honey (ooh sorry that was a Ministry record).

Sure it hadn’t been an easy walk for the masses, being dragged about the desert for 40 something or others. It was hot. Food was scarce. But still they were feasting. Hmmm. Maybe food was metaphorical, like iPhone 12.

Moses popped off to get cell reception to receive the 10 Best Tips on how to settle his people. It took time but he had real usable results (it would be assumed that whatever his Godnessness had to say was worthwhile) but the wastrels hadn’t waited. Worse, they dissed on Mosé for trying to help them to a better outcome. So he got all smashy.

The people were just partying down, wasting those resources and generally reducing their chances of having anything better. Needless to say it took a lot longer with lugging the nuclear powered food dispensing machine about the badlands before they got anywhere better than by the rivers of Babylon.

I suddenly get served adverts from the International Socialists suggesting that Capitalism & Religion have failed us (seeing we have a faux plague) and therefore we should switch ourselves to Socialism. Um, ok. Thanks for the offer but how well has that gone for anyone ever anywhere? Evidence anyone? Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro… Yet people will wave this flag associated with tyranny because it is attractive. It is easy.

The point is that taking the easy way may be attractive but:
Is it really the wise path?
Will it get us there any faster?
Will it maybe even prevent us from getting there at all?

Walk The Line

Whilst I was in Dr America’s (not actually his real name – but it should be) office, music was playing. Sadly most of the singing was AutoTuned. Many of those “singers” would say it wasn’t AutoTuned because they had their Engineer use Melodyne or another brand/method of fixing that they can’t sing but it matters not the results are the same. It is faux. Escaping on technicalities may seem clever but: walks like a duck and all that.

The music was what you could put in to the Sacred category. It was a mix of religious musics. Cool. But when we “shout to the Lord”, exalt his creation and all that, should we do that with our best or our fakest? Our true hearts or with one of these filters over our ugliness so we can pretend we are virtuous? (as you see in my perfected pic)

I seem to recall there was that whole bit about Cain who got the bum steer from doing that very thing. He got cursed to walk in suckfulness forever without even the option of being IED’d off his mortal coil to let him off his blind stupidity (Mark Of Cain).

Almost everyone derides the Social Media thing yet those same people are suckled up to it perpetuating the very things they say are unhealthy. Dr America said to me today: do you build anything by bringing things to you or do you need to build from within yourself?

Bastard was right. Better throw rocks at him and call him an idiot so I don’t have to do anything different that might lead to a different outcome. Maybe not. Maybe it was good advice. Maybe if I take that advice and build from it. It might take time & effort but if it gets me somewhere better than today, how is that bad?

When I got home, YouTube offered me this. Normally I ignore these things but it was Robbie and he seemed completely real. I figured I give it a few seconds. And bugger me (well maybe not, thanks, but it is ok if you want him to) if this isn’t good.

Swing Out Sister

Ok it is rough, but this is what a raw vocal from a Rock Singer tends to sound like. Overall it is a pretty darned good performance. This happened on-the-spot with the guy sitting in bed with his phone. There is clearly nothing but the guy singing in praise of being alive.

You may be wondering why I put this here? What is the relevance? Well if you didn’t see it, it is that Robbie is the real deal. He doesn’t need a box of tricks to make him work as a singer. He sold that song really well. Straight up. Even if at times he was imperfect in technicalities, he sold the Story of the song. Proof that talent is talent no matter.

I get sent phone recordings every few days and they don’t have 1% of the passion/skill of this and expect that I will (normally for about $5) turn them into FM Radio hits. Seriously I do. Scary. Faux, cow worshiping insanity. It will NEVER lead to anything worth having.

This (above) is what a raw lyric should sound like when you record it on your phone. If you can’t manage this passion then you aren’t ready. Go back to what matters, the passion as you tell your story.

So if you got this far: I am saying put aside the idea that music is about perfect cliche sounds from the VST of the minute, hammered by the Compressor of the minute (sorry side-chained cotm), AutoTuned doggerel about how your ho is more bling than my ho, perfectly mixed & mastered according to some silly 2-Min Tut from some person who never had & never will have a Grammy, posted to the right Playlist on Spotifry (mark of cain anyone)…

My Promise

Send me passionate work where you deliver a Story about something of value and I will help you develop it. I don’t promise hits (no one can) but… I will promise that if you follow my lead, we will have a track worth hearing. One you can show to God and know that he will approve.

Here’s one I prepared earlier: