Blaglash.com

Is your music just a big joke?

Due to several postings I have made on a few small websites, I have received a handful of messages about my music. The concern, it seems, is whether my music is supposed to be humorous, or some kind of big joke.

The fact of the matter is that I like to think that the music I make uses a handful of narrative tools to convey whatever it is that I’m trying to convey. One of these is humor.

I’ve never subscribed in my musical tastes to any particular style or genre, and I typically make fun of people who do. While this is the case, it has surprised me more than anyone that my music has been celebrated more in the extreme/avant metal community than anywhere else. I think that’s hilarious, and it’s part of the point.

I never trust anybody who is able to limit their feelings to one emotion even for a moment. If you can have a child without feeling a little nervous, or write a suicide note without chuckling with self-deprication, you’re probably not a human being.

Recently I was in Indiana sealing an envelope filled with my grandfather’s ashes. Using drops of water to make the seal stick proved disconcerting, as the water would soak through the envelope and cause it to disintegrate. With only a few drops of water, my grandfather’s remains were again unprotected. So I did what any loving grandson would do: I licked the second envelope filled with my grandfather’s ashes to secure a proper closure.

While licking the envelope, my mouth filled with the taste of sand and dirt, and the surprise of the acidic taste caused me to turn, spilling my grandfather’s ashes on the kitchen carpet.

How did I react? And how did my uncle, my grandfather’s only living son respond?

We laughed. Hysterically. This turned out to be one of the funniest experiences of my life, as dark as that might be.

So my point is this:

Music is a really hard thing to make, and it’s really really hard to make music that feels honest or genuine somehow.

And it might take a lifetime of writing songs to get anywhere near an honest sonic approximation of how one thing feels.

So instead of attempting to perfect the art of conveying one single emotion (William Basinski, Hank Williams, Edith Piaf, Philip Glass, Prurient, Robert Johnson), I am instead trying to scratch the surface of the millions and billions of microfeelings that make up the way I feel at a particular moment (Steve Reich, Mozart, Eminem, Earth, John Coltrane).

And a lot of times, things are just funny.

But more importantly, analyzing natural human emotions in order to convey them in sound and then to later write a defense of the entire process…

Well that, my friends, is hysterical.

So if I say “the joke’s on you!” it’s really an easier way of me saying “This is me saying ‘the joke’s on you’ because I’m an asshole and saying ‘the joke’s on you’ is a defense mechanism I use to avoid the discomfort of rejection, and since you have been kind enough to listen to my music and even enjoy it, the joke is in fact on me, but we knew that all along.”

It’s self-consciousness, defense, honesty, and fear all wrapped into one, I guess.

Anyway, outside it smells like a fire and I’m convinced it’s my fault.