Why do you produce music?

[simonb]

I got to know a guy from Australia a few yrs back via the net and forums, there were a bunch of people who were doing decent music and they'd upload their stuff and we'd all be checking out each others tunes and trying to better each other, then this guy ( who I wont name ) decided that he wasn't putting enough time into his music. He'd tried to submit material to Ministry Of Sound and got knocked back but that only drove him forward. I definitely wouldn't recommend his approach but he quit his job as a head chef and disappeared off the net for like 6 months 'locking' himself in his studio at home and became an obsessive recluse with a musical fixation. Anyway, when he emerged, he had a release that was an absolute smash. It won track of the year at Breakspoll and rocketed his name in that genre. He was already an accomplished DJ but after that release came a series of others and from his humble DJ sets in Sydney, he started touring the world, UK/China/Qatar etc and obviously earning a sh!t load of cash too.

We were all like WTF! One minute he's on the forums and MSN uploading tracks to the net for feedback and the next he goes AWOL and emerges with massive success.

yes unfortunately i'm the techno recluse type, socially inept till i actually get out gigging / clubbing then i revert to my former more extrovert self.
me and my soulmate artist girlfriend of 16 years, spend 7 days a week in the mountains, working 10 till 10 on our many projects, and organising an electronic AV festival. we go see, and get the occasional visit and from close friends, and go out clubbing once in a while, and now we're converting a 300 year old barn to live and work in.
we've learned to live on very little money and pay hardly any rent out here, we could never do what we're doing in the city.
the thought of doing some random job just to survive in the city, and make music in my few hours of spare time is about as far from my reality as you can get. neither me nor my GF could possibly do it.
as far as music is concerned, i dont actually spend enough time on it, learning and building a modular has been a two year project in itself, and only now am i finding the time to really get into writing music for the first time in about 4 years.

i've never been happier.

Interesting stuff - I think I'd find it hard to live that reclusive a lifestyle. I do love making music and wish I had more time (you're right, having a random job leaving a few hours a day for music is far from ideal) but at the same time I also love having an active social life and living in the city being in the thick of it, which pretty much requires a half-decent job and a good chunk of money going towards rent. Then again I'm in my early/mid 20s so it's probably natural to enjoy that sort of situation. It's all a trade-off really, making music is the no.1 thing I've always wanted to do but I feel like I'd go a bit mental without a good night out/night in/day with friends on a regular basis, if I was in the middle of nowhere writing music 10 hours a day I'd feel I was missing out in the same way I know I feel I'm missing out when I'm busy and knackered from working and socialising and have no time/energy left for music. Maybe a part-time job would be a good balance, who knows...

[AK]

yes unfortunately i'm the techno recluse type, socially inept till i actually get out gigging / clubbing then i revert to my former more extrovert self.
me and my soulmate artist girlfriend of 16 years, spend 7 days a week in the mountains, working 10 till 10 on our many projects, and organising an electronic AV festival. we go see, and get the occasional visit and from close friends, and go out clubbing once in a while, and now we're converting a 300 year old barn to live and work in.
we've learned to live on very little money and pay hardly any rent out here, we could never do what we're doing in the city.
the thought of doing some random job just to survive in the city, and make music in my few hours of spare time is about as far from my reality as you can get. neither me nor my GF could possibly do it.
as far as music is concerned, i dont actually spend enough time on it, learning and building a modular has been a two year project in itself, and only now am i finding the time to really get into writing music for the first time in about 4 years.

i've never been happier.

Man, that sounds awesome. I try and live on little money but I seem to be constantly chucking money into my electric meter, constantly chucking credit in my phone and because I'm using a PAYG dongle, constantly chucking money to top up my Internet. I have reduced my Pub antics to just a Saturday night - although I go out Tuesdays as I play in a Pool league and apart from that, I feel I'm just existing to get by. Thing is, every other fucker around me is exactly the same, running around just trying to make ends meet while life quickly passes you by.

I watched a DVD the other night called 'The Village'. A small group of people had set up a life in an isolated enclosure and were totally self sufficient without the need for contact with the outside world. Initially, you got the impression it was set in the middle ages or something but an encounter later on in the film showed it was actually in the modern day, they'd just removed themselves from society, had kids and stuff and the people born and bred there new nothing about the outside world.

I don't know what relevance this has at all but it struck me how it's almost impossible to escape the mundane 9-5, work to live to die society we find ourselves in where everything revolves around money. How you managed to dodge that bullet is beyond me but a lifestyle that is chosen rather than forced and inbred by a social environment has to be the best option. Man, if I could get out of the 'rat race' I would.

[steevio]

i lived in the city in my 20's and thirties, and loved being in the thick of it, but i look back on it now as being a bit of a shallow existance. it helps having a partner who i prefer the company of to anyone else, and who also loves this lifestyle, but also there are better parties and loads of cool people out here in Wales but with the added advantage of no dickheads.

i'd much rather be dancing with the sun coming up over the mountains, than some sweaty basement in London tbh.
better sound systems out here too.

[steevio]

Man, if I could get out of the 'rat race' I would.

you just have to do it bro.

fear is the thing which stops most people. my girlfriend is from London, and she was terrified when she first moved out into the sticks, but ask her now and she'd laugh about it. i was a traveller for ten years so it was easy for me.

you just replace tuberides, offices, bars and Costa's with shitloads of space and TIME !

and you thin out the millions of random people to the ones that you really care about.

[::BLM::]

Man, if I could get out of the 'rat race' I would.

you just have to do it bro.

fear is the thing which stops most people. my girlfriend is from London, and she was terrified when she first moved out into the sticks, but ask her now and she'd laugh about it. i was a traveller for ten years so it was easy for me.

you just replace tuberides, offices, bars and Costa's with shitloads of space and TIME !

and you thin out the millions of random people to the ones that you really care about.

Yeah im going to get out of it in a years time. I have had enough of not being able to fully concentrate on my music. Some weeks I get a few days, but then most of the time I dont make much music at all because I'm at work.

I find music really just one big battle with my mind. If i could get into the mindset of being happy and broke then it would be cool. Thing is I earn decent money with my day job, so its like going from one extreme to the other which I find like you said is the fear in me stopping me from doing it. I think its pretty sad that money has this hold over me, but living here in London its impossible not to be this way.

I am a bit of recluse also. If I have spare time, I would rather sit and make music then go out and get on it. I guess I do it in stages, one month I'll go out every weekend and then that will be it for a few months.

[steevio]

If i could get into the mindset of being happy and broke then it would be cool. Thing is I earn decent money with my day job, so its like going from one extreme to the other which I find like you said is the fear in me stopping me from doing it. I think its pretty sad that money has this hold over me, but living here in London its impossible not to be this way.

you dont have to be broke bro, its more a case of the amount of money you spend just goes from 'absolute shitloads' to a sensible amount for a human being.
broke kind of implies poverty, my GF still has her macbook pro and her smartphone, i have the gear i need, we eat well, have a bottle of wine on the table.
ok our car has three different colours of wing, bonnet and bumper, and will be driven to the scrapyard one day to be replaced by another £600 car that will last us another 6 years on these muddy bumpy roads, and you dont need to buy clothes every week, cos whose going to see you anyway ? etc.. its refreshing

[::BLM::]

Well broke compared to now, that's what i mean.

Like if I want something now, I can just go get it. I haven't got to worry about money you know? Last time I didn't have a job, I felt like I was just surviving and not really living as I had to watch everything I spent down to buying milk from the shop. Anyhow there really are more important things then money. There is no point in living and having money and being unhappy because the things you want to do, you cant because your job is getting in the way. I see this now...

[lem]

We need to start a commune!