Hi Fans! Hows it going? I hope you all are doing well. Ive decided to share some processing ive been going through lately. Im going to be transparent here. I apologize in advance if anything I say may be offensive, but I really have nothing left to lose, so im just gonna start ranting. Theres part of my ego/personality that always wanted to be famous/sustainable/recognized/valued in the worldwide psy/dub/chill scene. Whats cool about that aspiration, is that, I have, in sense, become recognized all over the world. But I never quite reached the point that I thought was possible, mainly, being flown to play at festivals and that sort of thing. When I say famous/sustainable/recognized/valued, know that I am comparing my aspirations to what I would consider the top success stories of similar artists in my genre, which I feel, have made a better quality product than I have, which is worthy of being more popular. Some of these artists would include OTT, Sphongle, Bluetech, Desert Dwellers, Kaminanda, etc. Of these artists I just mentioned, know that the only one I truly resonate with as being able to embody, would be OTT. While all these artists tour a significant amount, resulting in actually being able to make a living from their work, OTT is the only one of these artists that I know has any semblance of a stable life in terms of a family, a wife, a daughter, a home, a cat, etc. Actually, I think adham shaikh has been able to pull off the famous musician/stable homelife duality as well. But as Bluetech elaborated in a viral post a year ago, making a living as a music producer takes its toll, and is hard on family life, personal life, normal life. As exciting as gypsy/global nomad/futuristic/neo-tribal/transformational/psychedelic festival culture can be, I never quite embodied the values to the degree that I am fully on board, and these energetic reservations could have something to do with how things unfolded for me. For instance, just recently, I signed a contract for a transformational festival which I wont name. This festival was going to be my one festival of the summer, as this year, I decided that I wasnt going to use all my energy towards playing at the festivals. However, I did agree to sign a contract to play at this festival. And what happened? The contract wasnt honored, I was dropped from the lineup without communication, and told that I might be able to do a sunrise set if I felt like staying up all night and that I wouldnt be guaranteed pay. So my option was basically to travel 16 hours out of the way in order to play for free during a timeslot which I didnt resonate with. This was the rude awakening I received after planning my summer around the event, and preparing new material, a live set, and a live-yoga set, assuming that because I signed a contract, that it would be honored. Not always so, as I witnessed at the Mystic Garden Festival in 2010, outside of Manton, CA (a 15 minute drive from where I grew up as a child!). That experience was festival politics meltdown, a completely surreal experience of seeing a festival literally dissolve at the seams due to contracts not being honored. While this turn of events hurt, it wasnt the first time that I had something like this happen. I have traveled large distances multiple times to have my timeslot changed, dropped, etc. I have played more than once to empty domes, empty dance spaces. I have seen the politics from the inside of so-called transformational festivals. There is a lot of ego in this scene, which, lets be honest in quite insular in conjunction to global world events/humanity unfolding. Its nice to believe sometimes that you are on the cutting edge of humanity and dance music culture is going to ripple out and transform the world. But what I see from the inside is that the jet-set headliners are travelling from festival to festival and playing sets not because they feel a connection to the community or the event, or the people at the event, but because it helps their career. And at a certain point, it IS about the $$$. and as transformational as these gatherings are painted out to be, without the $$$, there would be no festival, there would be no Sphongle DJing his tracks to your trip. Its the reason for the hierarchy, there is a direct correlation between where the name is on the flier, and how big the name is, and how much $$ the artist is getting paid. The ones at the top get paid lavishly, the ones at the bottom dont get paid at all. Not that any of this is good/bad, im not making judgements, or maybe I am. Im just calling an apple and apple, and an orange an orange. If you are not able to see these aspects at play in the transformational festival culture, than you are in denial or not paying attention. Its part of it. Its not ALL of it.... But its there. does that mean that we should stop gathering, dancing, enjoying art, music, clothes, life, nature? NOT AT ALL... These festivals can be AMAZING and LIFE CHANGING.... But they are also BUSINESS MODELS for festival organizers, musicians, artists, vendors, land owners to make a living. Its not a magical fairy land outside of conventional society. It is set up just like any other business model in conventional society, and just like with any career path, youve got to fight your way to the top, and there is a hierarchy of power and politics and ego on the way there. What about my ego? As you can see, ive got a lot of judgement and opinions, so it is pretty strong. weve all got egos. I suppose I my ego perhaps wasnt ever cut out to be a global psychedelic businessman. I have immense respect for people like Bluetech, who seem to put a foot in both worlds in order to organize, and manifest tours, gigs, albums, label deals, etc, while simultaneously writing infectiously funky, visionary music that resonates veins of freedom and joy in countless evolving humans. Its that combination that you need to be a sustainable psychedelic musician. And then there is OTT. My perception of his trip is he just happened to write THE BEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD. Having a personal relationship and endorsement from Simon Posford was sure to help also. Sometimes success is Karmic as well. The right place, the right time, the right vibe ---> ride the wave. Truth be told, ive been struggling. I have not been riding the wave. The few festivals I get booked for each season rarely break even, and often times its out of pocket. Lifetime total of album sales through bandcamp, CDBaby and other avenues has been
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 17:54:08 +0000
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