As a musician I am often asked "are you always this boring?" and of course I say Yes. Musicians are only beaten in the boringness league table by actors. So I won't tell you about that hilarious time when Beyonce and I drove that tank into John Lennon's swimming pool and killed Nick Drake, or the time when I bet Neil Young that he wouldn't go on stage at the Brits and moon at Benjamin Britten. The only possibly interesting thing I can talk about is the stats. So I shall see how possible this is. Of course while I was quiet for a few months the graphs here were fairly level. I did nothing, the graphs did nothing, no surprises there. Then I dashed out a few albums and of course the graphs started getting lively.
Yes I hope that this surprise assault on Bandcamp might finally make me rich and famous as millions pay thousands to download my music. It hasn't happened yet, but I check the stats about every five minutes, just waiting for that amazing "Ker-Ching!" email from Bandcamp. What has been slightly disheartening is the reminder that whenever I come back to life the number of my followers drops suddenly. During my three months of silence I think I gained about 2 followers. During my three days of recent activity I've lost 4 followers. At this rate I will have none by the end of next week.
This comes from an important lesson about human nature. People will forgive you for anything, except existing, and especially reminding them that you exist. It's like that counterintuitive fact about Twitter. Unless you are amazingly famous and people are afraid to stop following you, then people don't like to follow over-active twitterers. I got a Twitter account years ago and struggled up to over a hundred followers, and I hardly ever Tweeted anything. And I haven't tweeted anything for years. And I still have all those followers. I haven't dared remind them that I still exist, so they haven't stopped following me.
Same on Bandcamp. Every release of mine is more likely to annoy people than to please anyone. I shall busily and quickly make a dollop of music for the next few months and lose all my followers, and then when I am alone again naturally I shall shut up and people will drift here and see that I have shut up and won't bother them, so they'll follow me.
It is the same thing with friends. My one big discovery about Life The Universe The Whole Damn Thing is that people will forgive you for being boring, stupid, quiet, noisy, too clever by half, repetitive, odd etc etc, but the one thing they will never forgive you for is if you are rude to them. Or needy. Musicians, by the mere act of making music can come across as being needy - oh please notice me, please play me, can you spare any change ....?
I've never liked being noticed, and plays are just pixels on a screen here, and pennies are something I will die with anyway and never spend, so none of it is important and it only happens because I lacked the ooomph to do anything brave - like give it all away and throw myself at the world, deep into the world, so deep there are no distractions beyond what is happening in that moment - if I serve any purpose, and of course I don't, then it is to be part of the voice that doesn't need or like the internet or anything invented since 1926, everything is worse, every action is irksome, every word we say just makes us more enemies, the best thing to be is that distant relative who you've not heard from for 37 years and you grow fonder of them with each passing silent wasted day.
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recorded last night, photo Battersea 2023 by Vanessa Oliver
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