SEPTEMBER LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
posted in: Music News
Yesterday, I took a one day vacation and decided to climb a mountain. It was a perfect day for being alone, so I made a pledge to not read email, talk on the phone or listen to music for the entire day. If you are like me, this is not as easy as it sounds, but I figured a little unplugged time would clear away some the media madness that seems to invade every synapse in my vibrating gray matter.
It worked until about three hours into my hike. There I was above tree-line with 120 mile visibility, clean air and no one around when it arrived”beautiful, eerie, intoxicating silence. I stopped, smiled and then finally surrendered to my internal soundtrack. I always have a mental playlist for climbing. Monotony and slogging can beat down the spirit of scaling a mountain, so it’s good to be prepared. Most climbs, I depend on the freight train funk of Aretha’s RockSteady for the final hurrah. However as I took in the stunning 360 degree views atop the summit, surprisingly it was not the Queen of Soul I was humming, but Harhay‘s My Way Home.
This recent OurStage discovery had happily carried me through the mental grind of the last pitch. It’s surprising really because, at first pass, it’s not expertly produced; the lyrics are not overly inspiring, and the voice is quirky at best. Yet, put all the pieces together and the song had IT, the indescribable gravitation pull that ends up getting stuck in your noggin like some kind of sonic super glue.
Descending, I wondered why My Way Home and its album mate Seeing Stars had been on such a constant loop. After a thorough deconstruction, I believe I mentally internalized the tracks, and in some subconscious way melded the soul of both to declare them as uniquely my own. Not as if I had written them per se, but more like they had been written especially for my personal use and enjoyment.
Then it dawned on me: this is why independent music is so important to each and all of us. We, the fans, have the sole power to give new music life. It seems obvious but how many of us personally engage with what truly feeds our melodic cravings?
Ask yourself, is it more compelling to pay $5 to hear an emerging artist or $350 to a corporate backed, botoxed millionare playing twenty year relics in some concrete arena hopped up on $8 beers? For decades most music discovery came via massive major label marketing budgets force fed to the masses via TV and Radio. Those days are through. Over. Kaput.
These days we can directly influence the careers of the artists we care about. All we need to do is join the tribe. Face it, we all want to be a member of the group, and finally we have the power to do it. Let everyone know you belong to your favorite music and it belongs to you. It’s true; the artists long for not only your support but for your acceptance as well. They want to be part of your team, just as much as you want to be a part of theirs.
When you find something that moves you musically, share it. With everyone. Be a hard core advocate: post, rate, tweet, blog, link, whatever. Satiate your yen for discovery and be the one who discovers the band that moves music to new heights. Hell, even if it never becomes anything more than a passing fancy at least you played a part. Turn off the noise, get out there and start breaking your own trail. Pretty soon you could be humming a great new tune looking out at a whole new view.
–Jay Sweet, Editor-at-Large