Is it just me, or has anyone else seen the irony (in a Cockney rhyming slang way) of a Portable Toilet (Porta-loo) company in California being called and run by a guy called ANDY GUMP!
“oi oi, govner! I’m off up thee ol’ apple and pears to ‘ave me an ANDY GUMP!!“
I was talking to mike last night about art and music. The conversation was “how long would it take to put together a collection of work?”. I responded with “As with a song, it’s not the physical time needed to record or paint a painting that is important. Technically one could record a record in maybe 2 weeks, because its only approx. 45 minutes worth of sounds. And in the same way the physical time to paint 20 paintings isn’t very much, It all comes down to the quality of the art.”
I could probably paint 20 paintings in 2 months, but there’s a high chance that 20 of those would be crap. Maybe, one or two would have a nice naive spontaneous feel, but the majority would be shallow and really not contain much substance (I’m talking about my work). In the same way as a song like Shinobi only took a few minutes to write, that’s not the case with all the songs we write, some songs take months to develop, some change for the better, others for the worse (you have to go there to come back). In contrast to Shinobi, Rooftops took almost a year for us to settle on the final mix. So, although it seems like forever for us to write only 12 songs, Its 12 great songs we are looking for, and having written close to 40 songs, in millions of different forms, Its actually quite tricky to make 12 of them great. Especially since (in hindsight) some of the songs don’t show their potential until the very last minute.
People can’t believe that it takes so long. One person even said “they’ve made 4 records in the time we have been working on ours”. Does that mean that they are good? I feel gone are the days that a band can have the luxury of releasing a record once or twice a year, like a snapshot of where the band was creatively at that point and all the chapters make up a career. People’s expectations are so high. The band are stifled, have no room to explore creatively, every chance is the last chance. People, demand quality, there can be no fat. The risks have to be minimised, and as a result is the music becomes obvious and bland. There’s a fine line between being predictable (sounding the same, stagnant yet recognisable) and bandwagon jumpers (change, creative development). The first one bores people, the second one confuses them. When a band starts, the have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The hardest thing to do is remain the same when everything else including yourself is changing. The second hardest thing is to realise what you are and be able to gauge how much change you are allowed to make whilst still retaining your own distinguishable sound and identity.
By hard, I don’t mean like working in a mine or a hospital. This is not meant as a rant or a moan. Nothing annoys me more than reading about some successful actor or musician moaning about how hard they have it. This is simply a subjective perspective and discourse on the pitfalls of creativity.
The surf has been pretty small. My scooter ain’t finished yet. Skated yesterday in a few pools. Fair dues, I am pretty shit. There’s 7 year olds pulling 5 foot airs from the deep end, and there’s me looking like a zombie on skates (an old slow moving zombie, not like one of those new zombies that bomb around, cause they’d probably rip, an I sure don’t). But It’ll come back eventually, maybe, if i don’t cripple myself first. All those kids need to get jobs and then we’ll see how good they are…f*#ckers!
Went to watch the ‘Galaxy’ football team play the other night. Got ridiculed by some Jock (Manhattan Beach Bro, with the flat peak baseball cap covering the eyebrows….just think OZ fest and raised pickup trucks and you’ll get the picture) for looking like Beckham, grabbed me and had photo’s with me saying “look everyone Beckham’s cousin!!” I responded with “F*#K ME! Its Fred Durst! look people it’s William Fredrick Durst!” don’t really think anyone remembered who fred durst was, so the joke eventually was on me. Although, I can think of worse people to be compared to…In fact, Beckham is a bit of a heart throb right? you know, the one all the girls like and the dudes hate because all the girls like.
cool. thanks bro!
What else is new. Finally succumbed to an xbox360. booo, there goes my life! good fun. me and mike and ian shooting up the place online instead of writing songs, what could be better?
Fell asleep on the balcony on my rocking bench the other night and for the first time in 4 years, got drained dry by some bug or spider or something. It went to work on my legs and woke up…no legs!! give me hell of a fright! gone! completely eaten all up. Well, not really but close, 16 big ass bites, all of which turned like purple and all messed up. I looked like someone had poured a bag of golf balls down me tights…..picture that!
Right I’m off to got and take the Jet plane for a little ride, turn her over and stuff, then probably go buy a few more houses this afternoon, maybe a hotel or something and then take my nightly bath in pure liquid gold… ta ta for now.
p.s. new photo’s up on my flickr…just search richard j oliver in people…thats me, see!
