I’m one of those…working-class, “local” type-artists.
For context - my stuff is what you might hear at an art opening, coffee shop, or open mic. I came up through the ranks of the old-school Busque street musicians, of which New Orleans’s Jackson Square was the best place to play, and Venice Beach was a beech.
…ah, back in the days.
It’s how I earned survival income while practicing to audition for university. I did it for years. Sometimes, I gave the rent money to pay for lessons. It was….hard.
Never been interested in playing big audiences, competitions, etc. Although I did play professionally in several orchestras, that brief previous-life was mostly financed by unpayable student loan debt, which has long since reached its aggregate limit.
Now, I just work with what I’ve got…and I got Internet, now.
And some time on my hands.
So, consider this to be a kind of Internet open mic. Thanks for showing up.
“Cricket Concerto” : Here’s the links where you can listen.
Enjoy the music? Go ahead. Leave a tip: paypal.me/icbusiness
This is a major milestone.
The energy of this piece was inspired by the odd contradiction of having learned the secret craft of orchestral repertoire at a rather exclusive university while being one of only a handful of working-class artists to be admitted.
To keep up with the costs of being educated in a cohort of rich kids, I worked in the event production industry while enrolled; shifts often exceeded 17 hours. The flexible schedule enabled me to juggle schedule and other practical logistics.
The industrial classical feeling is part of my subcutaneous tissue by now.
There was lots of unloading semi trucks by hand, setting up shows and events, and breaking down the events after the starlets and their friends had their parties. You can’t just get this type of job by applying; you have to have a contact. Kind of like a sponsorship for the H-1B1 workers; it’s a very similar system.
By the way, the H-1B1 status itself was unknown to me on the East Coast; I didn’t learn about this systemic exploitation of skilled foreign workers until moving to L.A. to attend university. That’s when my class analysis started kicking into high gear; I realized fast that we were being played against each other.
Not to mention the excessively horrific labor conditions for undocumented workers in particular; H-1B1 workers were also hyper-exploitable - even though the appearance of affluence was often present.
Every time the system adds some new “visa” or changes the tax code, I get flooded with indignation and rage. These rules are arbitrary and never reflect the interest of working classes. It’s not that hard to give basic income, universal healthcare and maximum income tax through the wealth distribution system that IS the Tax Code.
We could all have nice things: They just don’t want to do it.
The system is barbaric to all workers: Foreign, citizen and undocumented.
The differences are located in the vulnerability of each.
But enough of that class analysis stuff.
One of the events I was on-call to do was a post-film party for that one lady star, er….what’shernameagain….um….lemme think aminute. Oh yeah, it was for Jennifer Lopez.
There were three rooms to be converted into the overarching theme: “Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory.” Thematic events are very common in the event production world, especially in the Vegas hotel circuit. Those shows were….YUGE.
So, I’m on a Genie GS scissors lift with a couple of rolls of stinky, fire-treated fabric that weighs about 50 pounds each, and a staple gun that will give you tendinitis if you don’t already have it, which I did…treating the room I was assigned to work in for a shift with no lunch break that often exceeds 10 hours straight. Just another Tuesday. Takes about a week to set up the event, and around six hours to break it down.
I was assigned to work in Heaven, and let me tell you………………it was Hell.
Gawd, I love telling that joke.
Anyways…
The first time I published “Cricket Concerto” was in 2014; and the whole thing is just a blur now. I remember just getting started into the multitrack recording thing, and I was really into it. I wanted to record and mix about six different violin sounds. The cricket sounds you hear is one of the FXs added to two violins.
The sound of high-pitched crickets still makes me smile. It was pretty fun to play around with those effects, and I learned a lot about how to route audio in the process.
Cricket Concerto’s first tepid release to Internet radio in 2014 got some plays in Brazil. The modest payment appearing in my bank account confirmed that revenue from international audiences might just help me to survive the precarious waters of subterranean, working-class artistry - in a place where access to basic oxygen is a struggle in which I’m not exactly “the fittest.”
(I’m late to the Internet party, too.…by now, the PMCs and their bratty, entitled offspring have long-since sucked up all the online oxygen, to feed their expensive vanity projects; not much left for the humble hustler.)
Ah, my first Internet Busque moment. It’s so oddly familiar.
The Internet Busque
During the 2014 recording, I was still in pretty debilitating pain from the spinal cord injury, and I was also still in denial as to how long recovery would take - Looking back now, I was also surprisingly optimistic back then.
Reinjury from work was by now a daily ritual. Just like recovery was….repeat, repeat, repeat. By now, I’ve become resigned to the grinding routine of reinjury and healing, but I’ve also learned how to live and work in the presence or absence of hope.
So anyway, after I released it, the life got too crazy - again - so instead of doing more recordings, I ended up ghostwriting thousands of articles in a cross-country mobile office…..don’t ask. Bills don’t pay themselves, you know.
The injury was in 2003; so, it’s only taken me around 20 years to get back to Square 01, that’s all.
Substack is my lastest Square 01.
Originally, I thought about sharing some tips on how to recover from spinal cord trauma, but you know what….I think I’ll just keep that gold to myself.
Sharing certain things just isn’t worth it: The social media landscape itself is self-unaware and toxic, and after some experimentation — I’ve concluded that not fitting into a group’s pathology is, by default - a good thing.
Only the crickets can hear me now, in The Abyss.
So, give it a listen.
If you like it, you can support my work. Fuel the creative madness that keeps me somewhat sane….or, you can walk by me on the Internet sidewalk and give nothing; I play for the crickets, either way.
The next single release should be coming soon…((or not))…it depends on how well my de facto occupational therapy goes.
Backstory of Cricket Concerto
I had just relocated from Los Angeles to Montana to continue studying a rare style of Taoist Yoga, which had actually relieved the spinal pain and restored a lot of the function I lost. I still practice it, daily; to improve mental clarity and coordination skills; hence, all the writing. And revising.
Well, the Taoist Yoga studio closed two weeks prior to my arrival, and I wasn’t notified. Bummer. Soooo, there I was…in Montana. Nice. I took deep refuge in the incredible vistas and natural terrain within the state made famous in the movie “Hunt for Red October”.
That Russian guy-spy knew how to retire, let me tell you.
The sounds of the crickets were so beautiful that I suddenly couldn’t believe how human beings allow their consciousness to become so easily hijacked into oblivion from awareness of the natural symphonic sonic landscapes, all-around.
I still remember the texture of the bark on the tree I was looking at when I heard them….
That feeling persisted all day, until I finally had to kind of…vent it out. This single track is the result of that whole experience.
Take some time off.
Listen to the Cricket Concertos, all around you. Not just mine.
:)
My Post-Injury Motto: “Maybe instead of competing in this psycho-crapitalist system, I’ll just take a nap.“
7 Violins? Omori/Sunny would sure be proud!
Cool, I like it & look forward to hearing more. Thanks for sharing your musical talents, maybe I'll get myself motivated in that direction as well. I love music, singing & the guitar.