I'm A Fan

Lately, when my birthday approaches, I get reflective, just like anyone...

And there are a thousand songs I could play to commemorate all this contemplation...
But I'll just go with this one

It's scary and calming, all at once, to start this essay by riveting, with swift and thunderous certainty, a tablet of meaning onto my life; that a good portion of the worth of my life, my time here on the planet, is fused to the celebration of music--but specifically the music of my immediate neighbors.

At 10-years-old, I wanted to be Elmore Leonard, or Michael Crichton; I wanted to write fiction, I wanted to write books. But by the time I was 16, going on 17, it was the true stories that resonated with me more; I began reading more non-fiction and I joined the high school newspaper staff. I wanted to tell true stories. And very early, I realized that the most interesting stories, the most interesting people, the most interesting outlooks on life, would be found in the Arts, with artists...

That question of:    So, what are you singing about?   Or that question of:    Who or what made you want to make music? The answers to those questions could be so revealing, when it came to a person's character, to a person's motives. Maybe they didn't even fully understand their own motives--cuz some would seem so possessed, so ingrained with an inexplicable spirit of sorts, the creative vision, the voice... The answers to those questions would help me understand my own self, my own motives, my own purpose, or worth...

What resonates with me...is voice. Not only having something to say, but the way it's performed. The way sad lyrics can make me feel better or even happier, just by the way they are elucidated in a melody or through a certain tonal expression.

I would tell anyone who asked me that I never saw the usefulness of writing a negative review. If I were to ever write a negative review of the album, it would have to be because I can't interpret any sincerity behind the voice, nor substance in the message.

Why should people feel like they are separate from it...? From the music...? From a song...? I'm paraphrasing Audra Kubat. She and I joined Chris Bathgate at Roosevelt Park on a sunny day, secluded away from traffic and nestled under a tree, just talking about everything that encompasses the experience of music, the experience of making music, interpreting music, or using music... Using something to help you heal, maybe... Or seeing how a song can change within a matter of weeks, the way it's performed or the way it makes you feel...

Kubat, Bathgate and I have been engaged in a dialogue with music--Kubat's music specifically--by way of a series of letters where we explore the essence of a singular song. We finally got the chance to sit down together and it may have been one of the most poignant conversations I've ever had about  music--and that's coming from a guy who's had conversations about music once a week for 12-some-odd-years...

Kubat was talking about not separating any individual listener from the part that they deserve to take in any song that she, or Bathgate, or any artist creates and puts out into the world... I could write a negative review of any album that could easily be ignored into the background, of any album that is created, perhaps, out of something like a contractual obligation rather than an aching compulsion to convey something vulnerable from deep within the soul and exert it into the world where it would be free to hook into any human's ear and sow potential relatability and emotional resonance.

I tell Kubat that a lot of the reviews I've written, and the letters that Bathgate and I have been drafting, are veiled thank-you-notes. I want to write an essay about a piece of music because the experience that I am having while listening to it is so intense that it often demands a memoir-istic register, down to a page, (even a digital page), so that I can process it. Maybe I've always been too empathic to ever write a negative review - cuz there's a certain level of, yes, appreciation, or admiration, that that person, that veritable neighbor of mine, that Michigan music person, was able to accumulate enough nerve, enough sentimentality, to accumulate enough frustration or pain and parse it, arrange it, refine it, render it, re-ignite it, douse it, and imbue their self, their take, their perspective, their outlook, onto that work, into that work, that song......

So, there emerges, for me, a sacredness..., that I hold for the creation of a song - and I can't disrespect that. You can make a bad song, that's fine--I may not write about it, then... But for artists like Kubat and Bathgate to put themselves on a line, and not have that sharing succeed in a positive way, or in a way that can turn something on in a listener, I'd see that as regrettable. If I could help backlight the iridescence of the song's beacon, if I could project it's power, or emphasize something--and then supplement it, in a way, augment it--amplify it--with the emotions I'm experiencing? Then maybe I can be a humble piece in the bridge that any song has to cross to reach an audience.

Yeah..., that's a rather self-aggrandizing appraisal of what I've been up to... But what I've really been up to, is trying to demonstrate the vitality, and uniqueness, of each musical creator based in Michigan. So many of the music makers I encounter are doing this for the love of it; doing it without any guarantee that their 4-minute-long chorus-spiked expressions will reach an audience. So many of those songs reach me, reach me and shake me to the core--quite often. I want to tell you how that feels... I want you to find your way into a piece of music, so that it can shake you or help you or whatever it can do, maybe show you something. I want you to have a conversation with yourself while you're listening to music.... That's why I've always had that tag at the top of this blog: a dialogue with music...................................................
So I guess, I'm a fan....