Why do I do what I do?

Over the past 8 weeks I have gotten serious on recording a ‘record.’ Not just one take acoustic guitar skeletons of songs but an actual album with bass, piano, drums (or at least fake drums) and a band sound. It been a very trying and time consuming experience but I have loved it. I have 5 songs done (as far as the recordings go) with another 2 that are a couple of good overdubs from being finished.

Last night, on my way to play basketball with some friends I took a CD of the finished songs to listen in my car in an effort to hear the songs from different speaker than the ones I mixed them on. I had tried this once before only to find out that my first mixes were absolute failures. This time I expected much of the same. To my surprise however, they sounded really fucking good. They sounded like a group of guys in a room playing music, not fake or overproduced or any of the other things I had feared.

Although this was great, it got me wondering, ‘What am I doing this for?’ Since I’ve been about 19 I have always recorded music. I’m pretty sure that in the naiveté of youth my reasoning was this: “if I record these and send them to a record label I will get signed and become a big star and have endless supplies of sex and money and drugs and all the things a nineteen year old strives for.” Now I am a mature 23 year old (haha) and I realize that making record probably wont help win any of those things nor do I necessarily want those things any more. O.K. I still want the money and the sex (albeit from my girlfriend now) but not in the same way I did when I was younger.

But I digress… The question of ‘why am I doing this?’ is not as easy to answer as it was four years ago. I really had to think about it. I enjoy recording music most of the time but it is a lot of work. Its much more fun to just sloppily play the songs alone in my room or live shows. I spent all night thinking about this and I am not sure that I came up with a satisfactory answer. I think the best one I have is that I am creating art. Like an artist who hangs a painting in his own wall, I feel a huge sense of pride when I listen to my songs (not that I do it often) and know those songs are mine. Even if the world outside of Minneapolis never hears them, they are mine and I know that I brought them into the world. Why is this reason not good enough? I think its partly because its cheesy, cliché and self absorbed

So I don’t have some terrific conclusion to my rambling. Just a gaping unanswered question. But that’s what I this blog is all about, right? To ramble about the meaningless nonsense that goes on in my head.

For those of you that are curious about my music I will try to post some lyrics and MP3s if I can find web space and figure out how to do it. If any of you are tech savy and know an easy place to post them and how to do it please send me an email. I will even beg if need be.