LET’S GO SMALLER!
Hello! Sorry I was AWOL this last week. I was in lovely Los Angeles for the final push of getting album artwork done. Since I am a person with an art degree as well as a control freak when it comes to my own projects, I am the designer of the whole shebang. There is no “favorite part” of making an album as it's all its own reward… but working on the art, for me at least, is the dessert portion of the meal. I love it. I love styling, drawing fonts, taking photos, fucking them up, collaging, mulling over the credits and thinking of all the amazing folks who helped make a record a reality. It’s so fuzzy and humbling. There has been SO much going on since Christmas of last year there have been no days off or time to stop. Between the musical, the book and the record it’s all been too much. I am grateful for my last week with my friend, designer Rob Carmichael at his Seen studio in a fairly quiet neighborhood in LA. He made the experience of bringing all the pieces together fun, relaxing and rewarding. (And never have I drank so much seltzer in one week!)
There is never one part of a project where the other pieces of other projects don’t intrude and interfere, unfortunately, but this is my dream; one project with its own clear runway and no other distractions, just pure focus. This last week had a few things come up but they (thankfully) ended up helping a bit. I was asked to write a blurb for my friend Rob Miller’s book about music and starting the Bloodshot record label. (comes out in November, I believe? It’s called The Hours Are Long, But the Pay Is Low) It’s really good as Rob has a big brain and is such a good writer. I came away with the simple yet profound realization that “those times” when we are part of something magical and transformative don’t have to remain the “Good old days” as if we were somehow done. His descriptions of navigating the food, the music and the culture of both Detroit and Chicago made me see that there are more of those beginnings ahead of me, and anyone who chooses. My role may be different in the scenes ahead, but they aren’t one time things that are dead forever once their glow has dimmed. They are in us all the time, and we can, and should, make more. Passionately. Starting over, starting small and engaging in collaboration. That seems to me the way forward in this time in history. The time for aggressive joy through community.
I also had a lovely dinner meeting with Andy, my longtime friend who signed me to Anti records so long ago, and Rachel, my sister, bandmate and manager. We sat wondering at the state of the music industry now, as we often do. The grim, gray expanse of Spotify consuming everything in its path… capitalism’s robot of death for our industry. Luckily, you can’t kill artists and musicians. We swerve. “Let’s remove ourselves from the game,” I suggested. “Let’s go smaller.” We are so trained to capitalism that we don’t ever consider “smaller” an option. Let’s make records and zines again. Small batch. It doesn’t have to go world-wide. We don’t have to put things up on spotify, maybe just two or three songs to advertise (though, I don’t even want to be that involved with them…) and call it good. WE DON’T HAVE TO WORK WITH DICKS. And it doesn’t hurt to focus on our local scenes again. Remember how lovely?
People asked me many times on the book tour how to resist in this current time. I think this is one joyful way. Stop buying things from the mega-turds like Amazon and the other DOGE creeps FOR REAL, (You really have to commit, for real) and make our own scenes again. We have everything we need to do so, so why not?! Get involved. With love. I’ll post other ways to resist later as I’m still compiling but for now, this is my favorite idea. And a big shout-out “thank you” to all the Rob’s mentioned in this post for this inspiration :)
Analog tools for breaking the rules!
Excellent piece, NC.
Small is the way to go.
I remember after the post-Nirvana indie explosion, after every major label had launched dummy “indie” labels and milked all the “green” from every flannel shirt in sight, bands that persisted began going small. Because they (we) had to. At a certain point in the later 90s (I don’t remember exactly when, but I was there), 30K records sold on a “dummy” indie got you dropped. Such a record made money, just not enough money.
Selling half of that on one’s own label got an artist health insurance for the first time in maybe forever. And that’s not even the best part of it. The best part is when go small. you do whatever the fuck you want. No uptight bean counter from central casting wearing a crisp new Steve McQueen racing jacket, fresh Caesar haircut and still-not-broken-in Vans suggesting your stage wardrobe.
Streaming will try to kill art’s vibrancy. It cares only about engagement. That might not matter to some people. But the people who care will always overturn rocks & logs to see where that noise is coming from.
To quote a close mutual friend of ours regarding sacrificing values to sell records: “Sure, I’ll flick it around a little, but i won’t suck it.”
I love how you drive on, NC.
Yes and yes and yes for smaller, slower, more analog. That's why I love creating art on a letterpress — doesn't get any slower than hand-setting bits of lead spacing between words. Attention being the beginning of devotion, as dear Mary O. once wrote, that work is a contemplative act that doggedly resists the forces that would bow us to AI and the surrender of our creative selves. Fuck the instant-pleasure automated game!