Art For Art’s Sake
“The intellectual is the worst thing there is. He invents things and then he believes them. He decides the novel is dead but then he finds a novel and says he discovered it. If you say the novel is dead, it is not the novel. It is you who are dead.”
March 22, 2006
I've asked this question before, but why is it that independent movies are so well respected — in some ways, even more respected than Hollywood movies — and independent music, when recorded by untrained musicians on shitty equipment in someone's basement is so often cherished more than what a slick label cranks out? But when a writer takes it upon themselves to release a self-published book, they are generally regarded as a talentless, self-involved buffoon? Who knows, but thanks in part to the tireless efforts of POD-dy Mouth, all that may be changing.
POD-dy Mouth runs a popular blog where she reviews self-published books and was inspired to organize a contest she calls The Needle Awards. (Comparing the process of finding a decent self-published book to finding a needle in a haystack.) I was lucky enough to be noominated. Prior to announcing the winners, she wrote a group email to the caontest’s nominees.
"I had some great phone calls this weekend with the judges. It was wonderful (and vindicating!) to hear them all agree on one thing: These are great books. Every single one of them mentioned how surprised they were at the quality of the books. And I agreed wholeheartedly. The point is, even if you didn't win, please know that pros in the business thought your book was exceptional."
No, I didn't win. But regardless, simply being nominated has already led to a few agents and publishers asking to see my novel. Agents querying me? What strange new world is this?
March 23, 2006
Okay, as pointed out in the comments, yesterday's post was off the mark. It's not true that independent musicians get respect. Unless they 're signed to a hip independent label, they're often seen as talentless, self-involved buffoons, too. Same goes for the movies. In fact, having seen a million half-assed movies, and heard a zillion shitty bands, I tend to expect the worst from independent projects just like everyone else.
Envy the Rain might be the first book I ever wrote, but it's not the first book I ever made.
Ten years ago, in another lifetime, I played guitar in a band called The Greasy Boys . We played the Lower East Side's bar circuit with little attention beyond our circle of friends until a self-described talent scout saw one of our shows and approached us about "taking things to the next level." She told us she worked for a producer who was looking for a new band to work with. If he liked us, he'd produce a few tracks, and help us get signed. The payoff for him would be determined by whatever happened next. He's either negotiate a management contract, stay on as our producer, or in the very least negotiate a finders fee.
Needless to say, nothing happened.
He turned out to be not much of a producer. His studio was nice enough, and it was used by a few moderately successful acts, but none if it had anything to do with him. He was simply a landlord.
As for us, we figured, if nothing else, we'd get some of our music recorded for free — which we did — however, none of it was useable. The producer's hearing was shot, and we constantly argued with him about the mix. "It needs more top end," he'd say, trying to compensate for the frequencies missing from his ears. The staff engineer was no help, either, since he was a heroin addict who only showed up half the time, and when he did, never properly calibrated the tape heads.
Matt, our other guitarist, was the first one with enough sense to jump ship. He moved to Nashville with his girlfriend, a talented country singer from Ohio, to see what they could make happen for her there, while the rest of the band continued to flounder in New York. When I say "the rest of the band" what I really mean is Brian (the singer), and I. The rest of the band was a fluid roster of musicians with varying degrees of talent. By the time we played a gig with our twelfth bass player, we'd had enough.
"Why don't you guys come down to Nashville?" said Matt. He'd landed a job as an assistant engineer in a state-of-the-art recording studio, and had free reign during off-hours. Why not take a couple weeks and record an album's worth of songs. There'd be some expenses, but not much. A few hundred dollars. Why not?
In the spirit of fresh starts, we changed the name of the band, hopped in a car, and headed south.
Matt lived in a little brick house in lo-rent West Nashville. His neighbor's yards were decorated in typical white trash style: rusted appliances, primary-colored plastic baby furniture, satellite dishes, car transmissions, nylon flags and ceramic gnomes. One house in particular was filled with dozens of ceramic figurines. Everything from a little black kid fishing off the porch, to a life-sized Jesus statue wearing a velvet robe and wrapped in plastic.
At the time, there was a bakery in the area that had inadvertantly made a cinnamon bun that bore a passing resemblance to Mother Teresa. The bakery capitalized on the resmblance and agressivley promoted it. People came from miles around to see the “Nun Bun.” The inspired us to build a mythology around the plastic wrapped Jesus we passed every day. We imagined people making pilgrimages to see the the wrapped up Jesus.. All those who touched the plastic would be healed. The deaf would hear and the blind would see.
When it came time to name the album, there was no question:
The Miracle of the Wrapped Up Jesus
We took the idea and ran with it, packaging the CD in a little gold-stamped, hard cover prayer book filled with snippets of lyrics and several pages of photographs featuring various incarnations of the wrapped up figurine. Never mind the music, to us, the books themselves were little works of art.
The recordings were great, due in no small part to Matt’s production skills, and once back in New York, Brian and I sent CDs to various agents, labels, and producers. We soon landed a meeting with a well-respected music lawyer who managed a couple of big name acts. He sat us down in his office and asked about our hopes, dreams and expectations. He told us he liked our style. Sure we were a little off beat, not exactly commercial, but our music had a certain charm. Then he held up our book and shook it back and forth a few times. "Tell me something, though," he said. "Why the hell did you guys go through all the trouble of making this thing?"
Brian and I squirmed a little, and shrugged. "What do you mean?"
He said that we'd obviously gone through a lot of trouble and expense to make something that wasn't going to make us any money. It wasn't the kind of thing you could give away for free, or even sell for ten bucks at a show. "Why?" he asked again, genuinely perplexed, "Why?"
"Art for art's sake?" I said, like a little kid apprehensively answering a math question.
Till this day, I still don't know the answer. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
