Who Are You?

Who are you when you take away your career? People’s perception of you shifts constantly based on how you look and what you’ve done.

Shockingly so... Had many experiences where the way someone acted toward me was just so inappropriate. And now you want me to buy your product?? 😧 Some of the rudest ever were Musical Instrument store staff (particularly the heavily tattooed guitarist that "was a rock star" but he just hadn't "made it" yet) type when I had gone in to look at a guitar pedal or some gear in Sydney in the 70s/ 80s... ゴダイゴ Tommy Snyder was a Roland Japan demonstrator/Product Specialist and he was always so condescending to me. Not sure if it was (A), I'm the gaijin here, (B) I'm a rockstar and you are beneath me, or (C) the tech I tried to get his thoughts on was over his head, or all of the above. Other foreign product specialists were not like that at all. Even the Americans like Tommy. So different from meeting TV/ROCK star Jon English when I worked at the Roland office in Sydney before moving to Japan. Wonderful guy, chatted about PZM microphones and his home recording studio. Or the awesomely wonderful/ kind/ helpful Mattias IA Eklundh of Freak Kitchen. Our Story/ Who We Are as a short webcomic. Track on Bandcamp.

I had posted this to our Facebook a week ago and people that know me responded favorably. More than me just posting a usual music+comic thing, which are mostly ignored.

Putting it on YouTube SHORTs this week, but think that platform is all rather broken and isn't worth putting any effort into. Certainly not a priority for me at all now.

Since YouTube stopped prioritizing SUBSCRIPTIONS a few years ago, the YouTube experience has greatly deteriorated. And that they now emphasis SHORTS over long meaningful content is IDIOCY.

I am not a YOUTUBER talking to camera about something, even if this is the start of a short series in that format. These shorts are referring to music I have already released that no one noticed. This video has no slow intro, gets to the point in the first 2 seconds and has a real person in it, the way most of my stuff doesn't. Have read this is now important to YouTube videos.

I have never been about getting subscribers and assume they take into account my very rarely changing number of Subscribers ( just 242 as I write this), means my channel has a value of $0 relatively, for Google's advertisers.

I hate the way YouTube manipulates creators, such as musicians into doing reviews and gear box openings and what have you, rather than presenting their MUSIC, as that is what gets views!  I fear that I too have been manipulated.

Since doing this one I have bought the inexpensive DJI Mic Mini (1x TX 1x RX)  wireless microphone set and installed Open Camera on my SHARP Android phone to be able to use the external microphone.  Seems to work well, and the sound is way better than the camera alone. The sound is really important to me.  Bought the small phone tripod/selfie stick a few years ago and is very useful. Mostly gets used to hold the camera on the kitchen table when doing family photos though. 

Fun learning and practicing new things. Still using ancient VEGAS Movie Studio but as yet haven't bothered to download Davinci Resolve and learn how to use it.  I just wonder of it would render any faster on my i7 or not.

Wil Wheaton's Radio Free Burrito was a Podcast I listened to for a few years before he stopped doing it. Just him doing a radio show with music he liked. I thought it was interesting and I tried doing my own, hosted on my own www.artandtechnology.com.au website. Talked about current issues I had, music I was making and whatever else was going on, the way I do on this blog. I did 3 episodes then gave up and shortly later deleted them from our site. No one listened to it, and bots just continuously downloaded the files all the time wasting the site's bandwidth.

Other Things

Joshua Heath Scott the JHS guitar pedals guy, has a channel on creativity. Loves photography and has a collection of books on philosophy and creative works that I just wouldn't expect.

And then something like this:

"find the courage to make and share creative work", is the focus of the book. Not something I have a problem with and it doesn't mention anything I don't know at my stage of life.

Such as YOU CAN'T PLEASE THE MASSES with your strange quirky stuff. If one likes it, that is enough.

He makes an interesting observation, not from this book, that I have felt, but have never heard before. Every other thing you learn pours into (supports and improves) all the other things you do. You get innovation when you pull in your experiences from a different field.

UNIQLO 790円 out of season clearance and XL size! YOASOBI: producer+ musician+ singer originally making songs from an amateur writers website. Not a fan of their J-POP music, BUT LOVE the illustration on the back😍!!! Name on front so cool too.

Yoasobi is "nightlife" in Japanese.

Reminded I tried to learn freehand airbrush, the way you do things like t-shirts 10 or so years ago. This is one of the dozens of large practice pieces of paper I filled. I can use airbrush on sculptures and models, but that can use lots of masks and is a very different process.

T-shirts use a different type of paint. I just got sick of practicing the strokes, the smell, the mess, the steady hand you need, and cleaning the airbrush. I just hate cleaning the airbrush! I still have 3 airbrushes but haven't used them much in the last years with my music production focus.

I don't expect I will ever get back to any freehand airbrush. It turned out it just wasn't "my thing".

The comic Punk'N Head I had ordered never showed. When I check the supplier on AMAZON JAPAN, all they gave was a 3rd part shipping agent: GLOBAL HUB in Los Angeles, not who they actually were. A few days after THE DELIVERED BY DATE I found many other had found the same experience and that the supplier couldn't be trusted. I left a 1 star review and that it seemed it could be FRAUD. I got a refund no questions asked. My first such experience, and a reminder to check who you are actually getting something from on Amazon.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology  KYOTO JAPAN