It’s interesting – Georgia and Kat wanted to know what “our plan” was. Georgia has a very specific game plan involving a CD release, a book, a sampler CD, another Someone’s Sister CD – all working together towards a common goal, raising money for the prevention of child abuse. Our goals, and our plans to accomplish those goals – a little more broad and a little less defined. Perhaps I should say “my plans” – I think Heather’s are a little different from mine.
What do I want to do? I want to meet as many people as I can, form a connexion with as many people as I can – I want to make a Living playing MY music, I want to have a good time. I want to connect people with one another through music, or art, or failing that, in any way possible. I want to form a community – it’s back to a lot of the stuff that I was talking about before the Trip, and at the beginning of the Trip – the stuff that I’ve found it so hard to cling to in the face of survival. I want to prove that there’s another way to Live, and that you really CAN sort of scrounge through Life on art and music, without major backing, without being a parasite… Our Lives are so caught up in the complexity of credit card bills and home equity. I’d like to avoid that a little while longer.
So, there’s a lot of different people focused on community building when it comes to art and music, and I think alot of it is done… incorrectly, possibly even stupidly – and with a lot of misconceptions, misdeeds, and often downright dishonesty. I think a LOT of artists are under the false concept that the world owes them something – that just by being a creative individual that the world somehow owes them a Living. That the creation of their art, their song, their Lifestyle, is somehow inherently worth something.
Now, perhaps I’m merely a product of my capitalist environment, but I think I’m a natural product of evolution. And what’s more, I think I can look at the process and the progress – and see what advances the species and what doesn’t, what helps us survive, and what doesn’t. Frankly – humans are social creature. We’ve reached a point where we have the option of seeing and breeding out of and away from certain traits. We’re on the edge of being able to control that process without the messiness of actual breeding – soon we will probably be able to go beyond merely selecting the sex of our children, but perhaps we will be able to eliminate Down’s Syndrome and Alzheimer’s and the traits that lead to the birth of mass murderers. But what choices do we need to make? We need to decide what things don’t just benefit US as individuals, but US as a race. It’s the same thing on a simpler, smaller scale – as musicians and artists, we need to see what doesn’t just benefit us, but as a community. People have cued into that…
So, there are a LOT of artists out there saying they are “building communities” when in reality, what they are doing is “building fanbases”. I’m not sure that I’m not guilty of the same thing… But I think that PART of the community building is supporting that community. Buying into one another’s services, either monetarily, or through barter, is an important part of this. Especially within a community of musicians, free shows doesn’t cut it, there’s got to be tangible support. Going out and helping one another make numbers (I’m guilty of not doing that, really guilty), making websites, making this, that, the other – and repaying in kind. A good cause is no longer enough, it seems. Community building is all fine and good, but the community of peers – artists and musicians, perhaps has to come first. Survival of our own, sort of thing.
