BigUglyWorld #2 - Human Sacrifice (October 12, 2003)
Band:
We have a gig on Wednesday and I'm quite keyed up for it. We're opening for The Pindolls at TA Verns starting at around 9:00. This should be a buttload of fun with a very different crowd than we normally get, so I can't wait to hit the stage.
Me:
Things in my little end of the world have been intriguing of late. I guess I can be summed up these days as "Doing Fine" despite all efforts to the contrary.
The World Outside:
As we poise to go to war on this new Cuban enemy (how many regimes can we change before we change our own regime?) I can only shake my head. There is so much to say, and yet it was made obvious during our first 15 regime changes of the season that saying it is useless.
Meat:
It doesn't take any magic to be in a band. It takes a little magic to be in a good band, but being in a band is dead simple. You find a bunch of guys who similarly want to be in a band, and you say, "Fine. We're a band now." Done and done. Sometimes, you might decide to get together and jam a bit. Bam. You've become a band.
The real art, to me, is being good enough to get on a stage and put on a show. Now it's not about whether or not your three buddies call it a band. Now you have to impress bar owners and promoters.
Lots of people do this in a very sensible fashion, and that is by sounding commercially viable. There are obvious trends in music, and you can always latch the wagon to one of those and ride it into the cultural sunset. This happens at all levels of music, from the bands who make it because they sound like other bands to the bands who get to win the battle of the bands because they sound like the crap on your radio.
A few sentences ago, I used the words "real art". Let me be perfectly clear here by saying that if you make commercially viable music for the purpose of making commercially viable music, you are not an artist. That would be like the guy who comes up with strong brand imagery for multinationals calling himself a visual artist. A whore is a whore of course of course.
That doesn't mean that commercial success means selling out. I look at bands from Chumbawamba to Rage Against The Machine and doubt that there was much compromise along the way. Let me explain.
I've always been an ugly loser. Don't make that face, it's okay. I said it, not you, so I can't possibly care. It doesn't bother me to be an ugly loser any more than it bothers you to be whatever you are. It's life. But the weird thing is that one day I woke up and everyone was trying to look like me. They were shaving their heads, buying flannel, getting tattoos and ear rings, the whole nine yards. Suddenly, people thought I was cool.
I'm not cool, at least not in the modern-day connotation of the term. If you seek out the roots of the word, then I think I am a pretty cool guy, but you aren't seeking out the roots of the word, so I'll just move on.
I'm not cool. If people decided to start looking like me, that's their own fault, but it doesn't make me cool. I'm the same ugly loser I've been all my life, just bigger and meaner now. I didn't sell out by not drastically changing my style when it became obvious that others were looking like me.
So we're agreed that commercial viability by accident is different than seeking commercial viability. Good. Now I can move on.
People have told me that Johnny Incognito sounds like everything from Blues Traveller to the Doors to Megadeth to the Sex Pistols to the Insane Clown Posse. Now, I don't know about you, but I just can't see the common thread there. I listen to our music, and I don't really think we sound like any group. It would be wrong to say that we didn't at times sound like this band or that band, but I think we sound unique. And me, I like the way we sound.
The other thing I love is being on stage. When I was in high school, I was a drama kid. In college, I (poorly) took up standup comedy. Now I'm a musician, but the key is that I love being on stage. There's something totally incredible about that rush you get on stage that most people simply can't understand. If you have done it, you know. That's it.
So we play gigs.
This next gig we have is on a Wednesday. When I tell people about it, they all make that face that says that they have to work in the morning. It's a face I see a lot of, but it's a face I don't really understand.
I look at it this way. For me, being in a band is a sacrifice. I sacrifice because I want to be a good band without sounding like what's hot right now, and that takes effort on our end. I sacrifice by giving up time with my family and friends to spend working on our music. We all sacrifice for this. But we're happy to do it because we appreciate the outcome. And yes, playing on a Wednesday is a definite sacrifice, but one worth making.
Yeah, I'll be tired the next morning. That happens. I'm definitely going to get half a sleep that night. But so what? That's no big thing. I'm going out to have a good time and enjoy the hell out of myself, so why would losing a few hours of sleep shatter my convictions?
You see, a few years ago I woke up and saw my life as it was. I was working 70 hours a week for that mythical better life out there, but you can't have a better life if you don't have time to live it. I'd put so much effort into work, but all it got me was tired.
Life is way too short for that.
So I made a decision. I decided that I would continue to work, but at a more realistic pace. But more importantly, I decided to enjoy my life. So when I get offered the chance to have a hell of a lot of fun, the idea of being a little on the sleepy side the next day really doesn't faze me.
These are the sort of sacrifices that are worth making. It's made me realize that we all need to look at our lives and figure out if we're sacrificing to enjoy our lives, or if we're sacrificing our lives to work more.
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