This is a new venture. I have no idea why I'm doing it. It was just a thought that sprung to my head and I've sat down to do it without any consideration as to the good, or the bad, that may come of it. God knows what I'll end up saying on this page in the future. It could get me cancelled at some stage. Or it could win me a Pulitzer Prize. Although one of those is more likely than the other. I'll let you decide which.
I've taken a huge step back from music over the past few months. So much so that I've hardly picked up my guitar. My poor electric hasn't been played in months in fact. My final year of college has been all consuming. I submitted my dissertation a couple of weeks ago and that was a massive weight off my shoulders. I remember having a cast removed from my leg after an operation on my ankle when I was 17 and feeling my leg immediately start to elevate. It was a similar feeling submitting my dissertation, except this time it was my mind and soul that began to rise. Although I still have one essay and one exam left in my college career, that elevation has allowed me to peak back over the wall where music exists and start to look at possibilities on the other side.
I want to record an album this year. That's my goal for the next eight months. I also want to be gigging more now that I should have the time and energy. I suppose starting this little weekly scrawl is my way of pushing myself back into a space where I can achieve these things. A method of encouraging myself to start taking the steps that I considered college to be preventing me from taking. If you are entertained by it, then great. I suppose it has some other use. As an independent artist though, struggling away all by my lonesome, it is a way of keeping myself relevant. And getting clicks into this website. It costs me €20 a month to run this thing and it's been sitting idle for a long time now. I could have a Sky Movies subscription instead. So I suppose I better start using it.
I have this very unusual feeling of transition at the moment. College is a safe, secure space to be for four years. Emerging from it with a desire to stay in Dublin has its own costs. I'm immediately on a job hunt. There's no down time to be had. I'm straight into LinkedIn and Indeed like a bulldozer intent on burrowing its way through a job's centre. My conundrum is an old one that everyone experiences at some stage of their lives - time or money? I need both to pursue any sort of a music career. Time to record, play gigs, write. Money to record, get to gigs, support my writing. Added costs of rent, bills and being a social creature don't help the matter. Do I work part time to give myself the time to work on music, living on a breadline and worrying about not being able to pay for recording sessions, equipment, this website? Or do I live the dream in full time employment, hoping that people will be around outside the 9-5 to work on the different projects I have planned, fear burning myself out, and get too comfortable to ever take a leap back into music as a full time project?
I suppose it very much depends on what I want to do. If a full time job comes up that I know I'll adore, I'll jump at it. My mother has always said that I'm extremely fortunate though, that things land in my lap. She's right, I am pretty lucky sometimes. If I'm successful with my Basic Income for Artists application (which is the greatest scheme ever introduced in this country for creatives and I acclaim the arts minister with thunderous applause for introducing it) I'll be sorted, and I'll be able to do everything I want to do. Realistically though, what are the chances? Cross your fingers for me, I'll have mine crossed for you.
I suppose the one thing that this first entry does represent is a new beginning. Whatever position I end up in within the next month, I know that music will be my primary focus. That in itself is exciting. Some friends have it totally figured out what they want to do next. I have an idea, realising it is the next challenge.
I'll talk to you again next week. Keep in by the wall and mind the buses.
All the best,
T x