Like many classic cars and other hobby projects, I’ve been taken apart and put back together several times in order to give me more years of life. I remember a comic strip of a Sergeant who was always taking his Army jeep apart and putting it back together for fun. There were always a few nuts and bolts left over which he simply kicked under the workbench. Problem solved! Being a few parts short might help explain how I’ve managed to stay trim.
My most recent disassembly / reassembly was only two months ago. Recovering and healing from that has given me a lot of time to think about what I want to do next musically. I suppose I could make another album but I get the impression that unless you are obligated by your record company to create long format song collections, it’s a kind of hard way to make an impression on people.
I discovered after making Du Bist Kein Toy that most people don’t want a CD, even if you give it to them for free. They stand there looking up into the air trying to remember if they have a working player anywhere. “Well, I used to have one in my car but it stopped working and there was an old PC in my mom’s house I think may have had a CD-ROM drive, but I think she moved it down to the basement behind her piano and the boxes of Peter Max posters…”
The trendy resurgence of vinyl seems to me a way to make artists pay even more to get physical copies of their work. At least CDs were cheap to manufacture. Plus after shelling out two or three times the cost per copy the factory puts you on a long waiting list. Apparently there’s only one order in front of you, but unfortunately for you it’s for another ten million copies of The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. Add to that the fact that many of these new young vinyl collectors don’t even have record players?!!
Didn’t I see a recent article on some European paper’s website about cassettes making a comeback?
*sigh*
Over the last few years I made a few videos from Split Window’s shows which pleased a few viewers. I had even more fun filming stuff with my phone and editing that into videos for some of my own songs. I may not be very good at it but the work pleases me and I like the end product after my efforts. I don’t expect them to rise to the standard of the multimillion dollar budget stuff like Woodkid or Rammstein videos but they make me happy.
Who knows? Maybe someday I’ll accidentally flash too much tits and ass in an on camera wardrobe malfunction, or maybe I’ll even say something powerful and inspiring that lots of people actually want to hear and it will go viral. C’est la derrière! (That’s French for “Never underestimate the power of my derrière, motherfuckers!”)
More likely I’ll keep on keeping on the way I have done because I’m busy enough living my life and being basically happy. It’s kind of an amazing thing for someone who not too long ago was chronically depressed and reckless most of the time.
To summarize, I’m going to make more music and other fun stuff, but there probably won’t be new CDs from me for a while (at least until The Guardian and NME say CD’s are tres cool now and everybody goes out and buys new players so they can listen to the music on them). However there are still some copies left of Du Bist Kein Toy if you want one.
-V