A hard day's night.

 

On Tuesday evening of last week, I headed over to Hyde Street Studios for an evening session with vocalist RodDamnit and engineer Jaime Durr. To steel myself for the night, I had taken it easy all day and thought I’d be able to really put in some solid work without paying too dear a price in terms of my health (even mildly intense work, really of any kind, can lead to headaches, increased dizziness, tiresome fatigue and more).

What a fool am I.

By the end of the evening -- not very late in rock and roll terms, trust me – I was feeling the telltale signs that I might have overdone it. The next morning, as I headed off to my HBOT therapy I was sure I had overdone it. And for the rest of that day, most of Thursday and even part of Friday, I felt as though I were right on the precipice of Bad Day Gulch. I am thankful I never fell in. But life on that particular edge is awful. My mood sinks, my spirits flag, my hopes of being fully well once again some far off day get taken down a notch.

At least the tracks came out good. Everyone was patient with me, Rod sang his ass off and even the technology cooperated (we had no Pro Tools hiccups). And so the work continues. I will finish this album if it’s the last thing I do.

V&S responds. And, hey, I deserve it!

Victors and Spoils has posted my comments (thank you, guys), and Evan Fry, the CD of V&S, has responded. He writes:

Thanks for your comments Jeff. It’s lively and awesome and we love your passion and typing skills. Yes, we have a plan. But not so sure that we owe anyone an explanation. Please just be patient. Or ignore us crazy loonies here as we try to do something that will satisfy all and shape perhaps a way for everyone to be happy (who knows, it’s possible and who knows, we might have a plan). Oh and we’ll respond to your email inquiring about working with us sometime very soon. Thanks buddy.

Super condescending and mean spirited, not to mention lacking in punctuation (yes, Evan should know about comma usage), but I dished it out, so I'll take the hit. Besides, what the hell am I gonna do about it? Yup, nothin'. Unless I get onto Oprah someday and can talk about how I, a Writer, was called a mere typist. Oh, the pain.

Oh, and about my email to these "loonies", it's true, I saw their site, got excited and fired off a note. Then I read more and wrote them another note saying I no longer wanted to have anything to do with them. That Evan... clever bastard for leaving this detail out!

A new advertising agency is born! (warning: off topic, mostly)

Today, I read about a new ad agency called Victor & Spoils. To me, they are the lowest of the low in an industry capable of deep lowness.

In short, V&S claims to be "the world’s first creative (ad) agency built on crowdsourcing principles". Translation:

Rather than hire people and pay them a wage, V&S will offer a chance to some lucky few to donate their ideas to V&S's clients (even to V&S itself). If V&S decides a donated idea is good, they will pay for it, but the amount is solely at their discretion.

In other words, their client could be Coke and you could contribute the new tag line, and for your efforts be paid a penny and you would have no legal recourse to seek more. Worse, when they "buy" your idea, they own it, totally. They can change it however they wish and they are protected from ever having to pay you a dime more. Don't believe me? Here's the V&S contract.

One of the legal terms used in V&S's contract is "work for hire". I'm familiar with this because I use it myself, as does everyone else in the music biz. Record companies LOVE WFH because it means they can hire a guitar player to come in and play on a song and even if he contributes the riff that makes the song, they owe him nothing more than his fee. It's fair, to be honest, if not exactly cool. V&S, on the other hand, goes WFH one better: under the guise of "crowdsourcing" they will source 1000 guitar players and be under no obligation to pay any of them, and if they do end up having to pay because some lone axman delivered the goods, the fee can be as little as a penny (maybe less, I need to read the US contract, but I can't bring myself to).

Am I overreacting? I don't think so, but if someone out there can put a positive spin on V&S, I would like to hear it.

Oh, and icing on the cake: they moderate comments! Unbelievable.

Art vs. craft, one more time (I promise!).

One of the toughest things about “working” from home is that I just don’t have the same opportunities for random discussions about random things as I once did: such as art vs craft. So I deeply appreciate comments, and I thank everyone who has ever commented on this blog. Every comment means a lot to me.

The comments on art vs. craft have been especially good, because just as a great conversation does, the comments have educated me and changed my thinking.

I started out proclaiming that art is the intentional creation of a new form whereas craft is the honing of existing forms. I no longer think this (thank you, Sam). I now believe that craft can be done to a level where it becomes art (thank you, Sara and Dave).

Dave made a key comment on “intent” though that reframes the idea for me and, as a result, has re-wedded me to it: namely, an artist has to be trying to express something.

Oh, and Bret’s notion that art is not inherently more valuable than craft is also something I believe.

One last point: throughout these posts and comments, I think I’ve been trying to define art in a way that would appeal to everyone, probably an impossible task.

So, where am I netting out after all this? For me personally, the best art begins with great craft. As Dave says about Picasso, you have to know the rules before you can break them and craft is all about rules. When I see a piece of art like Jackson Pollock’s, I like it in the way I might like the way rain water looks rolling down a window in certain light. But both are the result of chance, happy accidents, and I’m too much a product of a culture that rewards real work to consider an accident art. I know Pollock tried for years to paint something people would buy, so, yes, he worked hard. But was he really trying to express something, maybe his frustration? I dunno. What is for certain is that he is famous for one kind of painting (I would argue one painting) and nothing else. Whereas Picasso, after mastering perspective and color, went on the participate in and create whole art movements. The difference: Picasso was a master of his craft and therefore had an arsenal of tools that was up to the abilities of his imagination. He had Craft. And he used it to create Art. And for me, this is the path down which an artist-to-be must travel: craft to art.

More thoughts on art vs. craft. And a change of heart.

The other day, I posted about art vs. craft, and boldly claimed that art "is when you try to do something that hasn’t been done before, whereas craft is when you seek to match or improve on what already exists." But two comments have made me believe I was wrong.

First, Sam posted "'bollocks' to having to stand back and consider whether or not something has been done before" and Dave posted that "Craft is an ability. Art is sometimes the end product of that craft."

They are both right, I think. Although I still consider myself a craftsman, because I'm just not ready to believe that my songs go beyond craft to art.

So, here's a question: is an audience required to seperate craft from art, or can the individual decide for himself? I'm going to say it's up to the individual. Obviously, if you want to sell your "art" then the crowd matters, but otherwise, if you find a bottlecap on the ground and think it's special, well, it is. I did not use to think this way. I kept thinking that there must be standards, especially for talent, but over the years, I've learned that there cannot be. Yes, you can say whether singer A is more on key than singer B, but who an individual likes more is individual. So while some folks would swear up and down that Steve Perry of Journey is a "better" singer than Dylan, I say Dylan is brilliant and Perry a windbag/cliché. And I'm right, so long as I'm only talking about what I like.

Any more comments? This is something I can think about all day and all night. I do, in fact.