shalloboi is never one of the cool kids

i'm somewhat disturbed by what i see going on at cllct.com. i say somewhat because really i'm not that surprised by it and actually pretty much expected it to happen from square one. i don't mean to be excessively negative but i just really resent seeing things like this happen no matter their inevitability. it's kind of become a den self-congratulatory folkies- at least that's who the site mostly celebrates. i don't know what it is about playing folk music that gives people such a big head, but it seems to me, having known and played with tons of 'folkies' over the years, that the two walk hand in hand. i guess it's playing all of those shows in living rooms and travelling the country playing to the same people over and over again for years and years. obviously this is a bit of a bitterness kind of issue on my part- and i'll accept that, most certainly i am a bitter person. i just am incredibly fucking sick and tired of being privvy to all of this high school-mentality bullshit. there are a few people who are part of this cllct clique (nice pun, eh?) who i am looking at as exceptions because they are actually nice people and have bothered to be nice to us when we've been around them and who have demonstrated to me that they are above such mentalities and i'd say they are james eric and patrick ripoll. other people i don't know, but i see them chiming in and i am getting a bit sick of seeing this shit happen over and over. a lot of this has kind of come about because i was having some memories from some stuff that went down when tony was staying with us while we were supposed to be making a record and it just kind of started to bug me again because it's just another example of how we (and i mean my band and stefanie and i as individuals) aren't considered part of the 'cool kids' gang and are often marginalized for being 'weird' or i guess not wanting to join the circle jerk. it isn't so much that we're upset at being marginalized we're more upset that the margins exist in the first place especially amongst people who are supposed to be above that kind of behaviour. i guess it's kind of a moot point as we've met some artistic people here in town who are truly talented and nice people and who aren't slaves to some kind of sheep mentality (ironically their art is a lot better and more heartfelt). i just am pissed because i was trying to post on the cllct board and my user info got lost in a shuffle that just happened (interestingly timed) and i've noticed a voice of dissent who was there (who i pretty much always agreed with) who was basically saying the same things i'm saying here- is conspicuously absent as well. it's just irritating because all of this is done under the guise of cllct being a real community that embraces everyone. unless you say things that the fat cats don't like and then your voice will be silenced. so in the future i'll still post our releases to cllct simply because it's a very user friendly tool to send out promos of an album when i'm feeling out whether or not it's worthwhile to send someone a hard copy. i really was hoping i'd be surprised but, no go. so much for the great experiment. i'm sorry we never bought a ukele and spent five seconds on our recordings fixing it all with autotune and compression later. this is where music is headed.
on a lighter and somewhat related note we had a nice and productive recording session with chris last night- the results were quite pleasing. katelyn and chris sound very nice together. i am going to get the two of them together at the same time for the next strings session. we only got a few songs down onto tape, but what we got is quite impressive. the album is coming along quite nicely. i'm enjoying the process of watching these tracks come to life- mainly because i'm not the one doing the lion's share of the work- the strings are so integral to this album that it is taking on more the feel of an organic band rather than just me doing most of the parts and making it sound like a band. i definitely want to do more of the three different string players kind of work going on- overdubs are all well and good, but what last night has taught me is that it's worth it to get three different performances from three different individuals. it's kind of giving the parts a life and a vitality that wasn't there before. beautiful. also the string parts are taking on the same kind of life that the other parts do- done quickly, occasional bum notes left in. i'm loving it. it's goooooood! one of the reasons i'm so bitter about the cllct thing is because i feel like it'd be nice to have a community of folks to be excited about this around, but as usual these are small victories that i only get to enjoy alone while other people overlook it time and time and time again. what's all the hard work for again- maybe we should start using autotune and all of that other crap. hardeeharhar!
today stefanie is here at the coffee shop with me. we have a market research thing to go to soon and then i think we're going to go and see a movie ('coraline') later. fun fun. we have two new netflix discs as well.
other than all of that last week was pretty good at work. i had a reasonably good time. the weeks have been flying by lately. i don't really know what that means. i guess that this is the point where my daily/weekly/monthly routine is so rote by now that it flies by with little to no effort. i'm still having trouble saving money and such, but hopefully we'll still get things going. this market research thing today is supposed to help with that- i am not touching that money. i hope that i can get more of these going as well. the guy who got this for us told me he'll have us come in as often as he can for as long as we don't mind. i hope that that proves to be enough. as long as i am not used to it as an extra means of income saving the money to use for more releases is going to be good. also i've got a pile of lps earmarked in my mind to sell on ebay and some of my guitar pedals that i don't use anymore that should fetch me enough money to at least get the mastering done. the actual pressing should be around $500. not too much. i hope not anyway.
this is probably long enough now.