Simoleons

You’d be amazed how many successful, recognizable artists live hand-to-mouth.

Touring overhead’s high, management and label cuts are significant, and generally the biz of show doesn’t pay quite what you think.

Spotify etc is wonderful, but we’re talking about streams in the millions before there’s enough money, say, to knock out a car payment. 

If you’d like to put hard-earned simoleons directly in your favorite artist’s pocket, consider paying to see a live show, splurging on the VIP package, buying vinyl or a t-shirt directly from the artist, or supporting via artist-friendly sites like Bandcamp.

We love you and we thank you.

Just Music

I’m writing this in the trusty ol’ Red Bicycle, prepping Climb The Sky’s upcoming single release, Wake Up With The Sun, along with re-releasing our other singles with new artwork, etc. 

A turning point in my enjoying starting a new band’s been embracing that I have no idea what I’m doing.

Already, I’ve made bush league mistake after blundering, head scratching error, flailing inelegantly in a universe that teenagers have mastered, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a tiny bit embarrassing.

But there’s something about jumping head first into a thing, with zero prep and negligible commonsense, and wouldn’t you know it, I’m learning stuff, and learning stuff quickly, and no one, to my knowledge, has died, or even been critically injured. 

I’ve made music my livelihood, but it is, at the end of the day, just music, and sometimes I need to remind myself of that.

“Too Busy”

It’s time to call out “I’m too busy” for being the lazy, nonsense response that it is.

You may, in fact, be busy, maybe even very busy, but we all bend over backwards to make shit happen provided we give a shit about said shit. No one’s ever “too busy.”

Better wording might be “given everything that’s on my plate right now, this isn’t something I can take on.”

The answer’s ultimately the same - no - but feels less like a brush off.

Havok

I acknowledge I may be losing a fair number of you with my unapologetic love of metal and its glorious and macabre sub genres, but Havok is one of the best contemporary thrash metal bands in the game, and the record below makes me very happy.

Try cooking eggs to this sonofabitch in the morning - you won’t give a rat’s ass that the curds in your French omelette are too large.

Devin Townsend

Taking a short break from playfully satanic, here’s some happy, dare I say uplifting metal courtesy of Devin Townsend, probably the best singer in the genre and I’d argue one of the best singers anywhere.

This performance of “Kingdom” by the Devin Townsend Project’s been making the rounds for a while - it’s flabbergasting in the kind of way that does your heart good.

Have a watch/listen.

And vocal instructors reacting to this video’s a low-key wonderful YouTube rabbit hole.

Goals

I’m not against setting goals by any means, but which type of goal is important.

‘Tis the season, for example, to finally, FINALLY whip some tunes together and record that EP, and do it by April goddammit. And you do it, and it’s great, and you check it off your list and move on.

But what if the goal’s simply to write music every day? You write write write, and when it’s time to make that EP, turns out you have enough material for a full-length, along with the first act of a musical. 

Results-based goals are fine, but by changing our behavior, our identity, we’re capable of so much more. 

Thank You

Artists, thank you. The world needs good art, and that ours is in it means we’re coaxing the paradigm forward, doing the personal work most are afraid of.

To patrons of the arts, thank you. There are so many of you, stalwart and discerning, listening with hearts and minds wide open.

We’re in this together, putting in the work, unglamorous though it may be, one day at a time. 

Optimism

I’m optimistic about the new year, a sentiment for which I’m equal parts unideal and unwelcome messanger, given I have the easiest life imaginable.

The alternative is pessimism - before you know it, you’re a braying anachronism.

So I choose optimism, as the antidote to complacency, and, frankly, it’s about goddamn time.

The Prize

It’s surprisingly difficult writing a daily email newsletter while on vacation. 

The idea, generally, is jotting down maybe five shareable thoughts throughout the day and picking the least asinine to embellish into a post. 

My five shareable thoughts while making records or on tour or punching underwater through the music biz are, I suppose, a peak behind the curtain, and presumably therefore interesting. 

At the moment, pressing matters include whether or not to tan my asscheeks. My eye’s not really on the prize here.

So, I’ll humbly suggest you check out my friend Claire Saint’s debut record. The Klein brothers (of Climb The Sky fame) produced it and did a fantastic job. 

Mummy Dust

The last week of the year is quiet, which leaves time for new plans, new learning, and new opportunities. 

Or, you can lose yourself in Nosferatu-approved post-thrash metal epics about mummy dust.

Thankfully, none of you subscribe to this thing expecting revelatory monologue. In fact, it’s a point of pride that, within the first few months of the MoaT’s existence, every “recognizable music entity dot com” person, realizing this really is just some dingus sharing a meandering thought or two every day and not Answers to the Test, brusquely unsubscribed. 

I’m watching palm trees sway gently in the breeze while listening to the occult evangelized in four-part harmony. It brings me joy. I hope you find yourself in a similar-yet-different place. 

Post-Boxing Day Thoughts

Back in 2011, I started sitting in at the Sea Monster Lounge with the guys who’d become the first incarnation of the Allen Stone Electric Ensemble. 

I didn’t have a lot going on. My rock band had broken up, and I’d half-heartedly released a few solo tunes, knowing I didn’t possess the emotional wherewithal to do much with them.

When the chance to sub for my buddy RL Heyer on Sunday nights came up, I suppose I was too indifferent about music at the time to say no. So I said yes. The rest, as they say, is ludicrously improbable and suspect history.

Back in 2011, I decided to take a leap of faith with Al and the guys, not because I thought it would last (precious little does in this business) or that it made sense (the organization at the time embraced what could be politely described as an “improvisational flair”), but because I knew that in restraint lurks the shadow of doubt that prevents me from changing my life.

And Quiet

Peace

Time

I’m an ambitious person, and there’s a tendency to want to squeeze every ounce of utility out of the day, which is, on the one hand, admirable. On the other, the one with its middle finger extended, it’s self-sabotaging and, infinitely worse, boring.

I’ve never had a great idea while ostensibly crushing the game. Not one. Lounging in condiment-stained underpants, building teetering shrines to underachievement out of Oreos? Dozens. Hundreds. Millions.

So, what about fun? What about meh? Both are perfectly wonderful states of being, revealing the little gems of quotidian human existence that make our fleeting time on this spinning orb worth while.

Soul

“Through it all, who we are is Soul…and when the body and ego are gone, the Soul will live on.”

Rest well, Ram Dass. A powerful and inspiring teacher.

Most Welcome

For many, the holiday season can be a rough time of year.

A text or phone call can mean the world to someone who’s deep in it.

Simple gestures, almost always, are the best, and most welcome.

Prequelle

I’m on vacation, which means daily postprandial listening sessions of playfully satanic heavy metal.

Today’s gem in Ghost’s latest, Prequelle. I mean, just the artwork alone, my friends. And the power chorus in “Rats.” Tobias Forge is a curmudgeonly genius, and if a genre’s merit can be quantified by the number of beautiful assholes creating within it, look no further than masked Swedish pop/metal.

However and Whenever

Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell wrote and recorded When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go in Finneas’s bedroom. They’re a lock for album, record, and song of the year at the Grammys next month.

My friends in Delta Rae, after ditching their major label, recorded and mixed their upcoming record, The Light, in home studios.

A buddy just landed a five-figure sync deal for a track he produced in GarageBand on his iPhone.

We can make and share art - shimmering, high-fidelity, potentially generation-defining art - however and whenever we choose. If someone tells you otherwise, they’re an asshole.

Leveling Up

There’s a fear surrounding starting over, but you’re never really starting over, not completely.

I can, I think, speak confidently on your behalf, dear reader, and say you’re less of an asshole than you were five years ago, and a half decade of getting your ass kicked by life’s made you a veritable walking Buddha, or at least marginally tolerable company. 

We take ourselves with us wherever we go, in all the best ways. We’ve all leveled up. We should give ourselves credit. 

It’s never too late to grow into the person we’re meant to be.

Hypotheticals

Children in airports are a delight, principally because they tell shit like it is and there isn’t a goddamn thing anyone can do about it.

Say, hypothetically, you’re told to stand in a crazy long security line instead of the much shorter one you’ve chosen.

When you ask, in a practiced, measured tone, why you’re being told to stand in the crazy long line, the guy with mustard stains on his uniform suggests, view troglodytic utterance, that you are an ignoramus.

The five year old standing behind you, eavesdropping as all good kids do, counters by saying the guy with mustard stains on his uniform is “dumb.” The child does so loudly, and is met with perfunctory chastisement by his mother, who is simultaneously beaming with pride, much to the consternation of the guy with mustard stains on his uniform.

I remain in the shorter line, humming a whimsical tune.