Are we the most privileged generation ever?
We have everything in our hands, yet we decide to whine and complain
Link to music: Le Vinz Bandcamp.
(Nota bene: I’m still researching some information for a post I want to write about the conception of Time and how it impacts our search for meaning. However, I’ve spent the last months working on some music, and I had to dive in full-on in order to finish the song I was trying to make. Here it is… and some ideas about the state of creation. We’ll go back to philosophizing next week).
My father was a filmmaker, play writer and theater director. I grew up listening to stories about how difficult it was to make his art: how they had to steal movie reels from their editing jobs and figure out how to smuggle a camera out and bring it back, because there was no way back then to make movies without money. They also had to shoot tourné-monté, meaning they had no way of editing their shots; they’d shoot the movie in chronological order, hitting the pause button and hoping the actors didn’t screw up. Not only that, but they had no monitor, so it was impossible to know what the camera man was actually shooting. They’d just yell “action” and try and gauge the scene from the outside, as if it were theater.
The old man was fascinated when I shot my first guerrilla movie, “Permanence”, because it reminded him of his own exploits. However, we weren’t in the 1960s; we were circa 2010 and had all the technology we needed. At that point, I knew nothing about shooting a movie, guerrilla or other; much less about video and sound editing. I spent countless hours watching Youtube tutorials on Final Cut Pro and ProTools, trying to make the effects I had in my head. It was a long, rough journey; but somehow I managed to pull it off (and 4 other shorts - one even won a prize!).
It must have been around that time that I started dabbling in music recording. Even though I studied music in high school and learned some composition, I was forced to stop playing classical music and jazz on my clarinet when a neighbor called the cops on me for “noise pollution” (it’s not my fault you're supposed to play 2 hours of scales a day, Madam). Since I was barely a French language student on a 3-month visa, I panicked and stored the clarinet under the bed.
At the time, I was a hotel receptionist in the 6e district to finance my studies. The owners were fond of an American hippie couple, Lawrence & Lorie, who they let sleep in the basement for free and gave some money for doing odd jobs. These were real hippies: people who went to Woodstock and knew Bob Dylan, refused to *ever* work and lived a nomadic, quasi-mendicant lifestyle. Lawrence spent his days smoking Parisian hashish, painting and playing the guitar. He was always stoned out of his mind.
Well these two convinced me of getting a guitar, and my roommate, a self-taught guitarist, promised to show me some chords. That’s how it all started. Some years later, when my repertoire had expanded to 3-chord Bob Marley songs and a terrible cover of “Creep”, I met Mickaël Moine, a bona fide guitarist and all-around amazing person. We’d hang out all the time, drink beer, listen to music and try to figure out songs. It took us a couple of years to start a group, but soon People appeared. We played some live shows, in art venues, bars and gallery openings. It was super fun.
We recorded a couple of songs at the Studio de la Seine, where Kanye was recording “Yeezus” at night (seriously). We had a friend who had access to a small studio, so we snuck in and laid down some tracks, including “Ciudades”, one of my first original songs on guitar.
Unfortunately, Micka was suddenly hit with an inoperable brain tumor and passed away some years later. So that was the end of that group.
After a (long) period of healing where I could barely pick up the guitar without thinking about my buddy, I slowly got back into it. However, I had nobody to play with and frankly, didn’t want anyone to play with. So I did what nobody could have done in my father’s time: I installed a music editing software and calmly started watching videos on how to produce music myself.
Now, let me be emphatic about something: I am not a musician. I’m a guy with a guitar and a mic. I have real musician friends I deeply respect, so I feel like I’m making a mockery of their art if my play-by-ear and improvise first, approach is compared to their serious work.
You’ve probably gathered as much, but I wouldn’t call myself a moviemaker, either, for the same reasons. I’m a guy who likes to make movies and play music in his free time, that’s about it.
What’s my point? That we’ve never as a society had so much artistic freedom as we do now. We can make decent-quality movies for near to nothing (“Permanence” budget: 400€, mostly to rent the camera), music for absolutely nothing and literature, too.
I’m extremely blessed to live in this time, where I don’t need to get green lit by an editor/producer/distributor to see my ideas come to life. Do you know how lucky we are? My father would have given anything to have this kind of freedom of creation when he was young!
We can do whatever we want. That’s the reality. I personally don’t understand why artists keep on looking for some sort of validation from “the system” (whatever that may be), instead of going solo and making their art. Do you really think I care about what somebody at Virgin or Universal thinks about my songs? Or the producers that handcuffed Terry Gilliam with objections when he was making “Brazil”?
I don’t care, and you shouldn’t either. Live your life, build stuff, make art, create things you like. The rest is just superfluous.
I’ll leave you with my new song, “Coincidences (Go Inside)”, hoping this will inspire you to make something of your own, too! Get the High Quality Version for FREE on my bandcamp (or donate if you feel it’s worth it. I don’t need donations, so it’s really up to you).
Coincidences (Go Inside)
She comes when night has fallen
Seeking the hunger in your soul
Mirrors, cascading colors
Robots will take over control
Yet the boots keep marching,
The dogs keep barking,
Rising stocks and misery,
Look me deep in the eyes,
The force can't be denied
When you and me
When we ...
[Chorus]
Coincide (Go inside)
Coincide (Go inside)
Coincide (Go inside)
Stoke the flames, the world is a burning hellscape
So let's dance!
Let's just dance!
Come on, dance!
Feed the fires, the client gets what he paid for
People dance!
And romance!
Wave your hands!
They want us to be hopeless
They're always trying to break us and to make us quit
They wanna have their cake and eat it too, but we eat less, I digress,
The fire's lit but wood is wet
Yet I feel like someone's Puppet
I can feel the strings they're pulling
I feel them walking on my grave
Come on over tonight
You're my only respite
I'll stay alive if we…
[Chorus]
The bureaucrat signs a letter
The con man and his cronies our government will run
They wanna outlaw our pleasures
Always coming to us with the barrels of their fucking guns
They will sell your culture back to you
Now it's deemed acceptable
There's nothing holy about a war
We're supposed to survive
I don't really know why
when you and I
When we…
[Chorus]