Now I Mostly Wear Black - A Goth Evolution

(Emily Strange, by Kiara The Random - Deviant Art)
Mostly, I wear black.

It started as a reaction to Life.
To the world, to its people.
To the bullshit you go through as you experience life.

Pop (and not so pop) culture brought the goth subculture to my awareness when I was a kid, and there you had it.
I was about 12, and I became goth.

And I was goth for a very long time.

Now I just mostly wear black.

People say:
Black's not a colour.
Black's all the colours.

Whatever.
I say:
Black's an easy colour to pair up with any other black.
Black is easy go-to straight-up fashion.
It's my colour, and that's not gonna change.
Whenever I wear white, I always end up staining it anyway.
It's never really a problem if you stain your blacks. You're likely not to even notice it yourself.

*

So what does it even mean anymore to be goth?
As mentioned in one of my previous editorials, it comes down to embracing your darkness within, letting it out, and making it shine.

When you're a kid, and faced with darkness, you either choose to run away from it, or face it.
And if you choose to face it, then you open yourself to everything the goth subculture has to offer.

Sure, you can look at the South Park goth kids and have a good laugh. It's caricature of course, but there is an underlying truth in that, somewhat.

A kid's goth phase starts off because yes, the kid is angry, sad, jaded and overall done-with-it, but eventually, you find your people. Like-minded people, who are also looking for a way to find themselves amidst everything that's not them.
You find ways to fight. You find ways to smile again.
Some people grow out of their goth phase quickly. Others take years or decades. Others revel in the subculture, and as delighted to be alive as they can be, never EVER grow out of it. It's not even a phase anymore, it's their lifestyle.

As far as I'm concerned, I believe in the freedom to build yourself as you damn well please.
As figures of alternative lifestyles, we get to explore, and inspire ourselves from all the marvelous subcultures that exist, so as to create a style for ourselves that's resolutely forever our own. Such is the beauty of the human creative potential.
And this is where evolution comes into play, and this is where one can experience the beauty of it.

Evolving means there's things you're happy to let go of.
On my end, I was very happy when my Victorian phase got over and done with.
I was even happier to realize the Steampunk wave, itself, was over and done with.
(As I realized this, I also realized my clothes would be costing me a lot less.
Meaning I can spend more money on upgrading my wardrobe to latex.
Which is, in itself, one of the wonderful aspects of my personal evolution.)

And then, there's things you'll cherish forever.
There's music I got into then, that I'm still into now. That's not gonna change.
Antichrist Superstar is still an incredible album.
The Downward Spiral remains one of the greatest albums of all time, as far as I'm concerned anyway.
There's a reason why Beetlejuice and The Craft are cult movies. Everybody loves Lydia, everybody loves Nancy.
And Emily Strange is my home girl.

It's all about balance, in the end, and finding out more about yourself everyday, thus discovering more and more treasures in every culture, and in the universe itself. I love to sunbathe as much as I revel in a clear night sky full of stars.

And Life's a lot more fun when you can laugh and dance along with it.

It's evolution, baby.

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Modern Myths - To Make an Album in 2017

A few days ago, I got the first mixes of my album.
Obviously, I've been listening non-stop. For anyone reading this who's ever had a child, it's a bit like obsessively staring at your last ultrasound before actually giving birth. It's as close as you've ever come to seeing how your baby's gonna look like, yet it's still not quite actually what it should be, so you can only muse upon the final outcome.
I'm not there yet, but I'm as close as ever, and I couldn't be more proud. In all honesty, I wasn't expecting the album to be this good. I'm quite impressed with what I've created.

During one of my listens last week, I found myself diving into the momentum of the album utterly and completely. It was like time didn't matter, nor what happened during my day, nor what I had planned for the next one. Space didn't really matter either, nor did the outcome of the future. In that moment, there was me, pure me, and the songs, gliding into one another, and their stories, weaving together the bigger story of Original Game itself.
I found myself reconnecting to each of these stories and ultimately reconnecting to the bigger story -the reason behind my Original Game in the first place.

And then, I understood what it means to write and release an album, in 2017 -versus writing and releasing a song, which is what most artists do these days.

At that point, I told myself This is why I wrote an album anyway. Because it mattered to me to tell this story.
Each song is a chapter. You can listen to just one song, if you'd like, but then you're not getting the whole tale, nor the reason behind the song.
Listen to the album, or any album, really, in its integrity, and find yourself surrendered to a modern legend, myth, or folklore.

We owe it to each other to keep telling stories. This is written in one of Neil Gaiman's books somewhere.
It's true. We owe it to ourselves to keep folklore alive, renewed, and up-to-date. 70 years from now, people will listen to the albums we've created, and they'll be able to get a glimpse of the reality of our times. They'll be able to know what our stories were; they'll know what we dreamed of, what we fought for, what we delighted in, and what the shape of our desires was.

Let us keep making albums -capture complete sonic tales. Otherwise, we only leave boundless chapters behind, without any beginning or end. I mean, chapters do have beginnings and ends of themselves, but they have no frames to hold them in. Which is fine, if that's what you're aiming at, all things considered.

Point is, the Art of the Album is not lost, or gone, or done with. It's a way into modern myths, and a way into another universe.

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Keep Making Art, and Support the Underground

Allow me to start this year pondering yet once more upon the future of the music business.
Allow me to point out that any business, at one point or another, crashes.
Over the past few years, I've been finding myself caring more and more about making art, and less and less about turning my art into a business.
In a way, I find myself seeking out ways to make my art sustainable, instead of making it a sustainable business. A play on words, perhaps, but the subtlety lies in the words themselves.

On a rather lazy New Year's Day, I found out through Twitter of Mariah Carey's devastating performance, or lack of, at  New York Times Square the night before. I ended my New Year's Day with some friends at their place, and we watched it, in awe of its decrepitude and underlying apathy.

I watched it, taking in every single detail of the broadcast -the lights, the stage, its setup, the crew, the dancers, the performer herself, and the crowd. All I could see was money, spent and wasted.
The money and the sadness of it all.

Perhaps it's the forecast of the downfall of an era, or perhaps its actual beginning.
I was thinking How can you to this to people.
How can you do this to Art.
To Music.
Mariah Carey had nothing to do with this, of course. Mariah was just a pawn, a token of the underlying apathy. Somewhere down the line, clearly, somebody didn't do his or her job properly.
I'm not here to downgrade this singer at all. And as a singer myself, I have been explained the reason why in certain circumstances, it's a good idea to have a track to fall back upon.
I don't do that kinda thing, and would never do it, but I understand why certain artists do it.

But the point isn't the lip-synching here.
The point is the mediocrity of the music industry, and its carelessness of money spent into  a disastrous performance, and ultimately its absolute lack of respect of people.
Here's a product, here's money to invest in a product, let the product entice people into buying more products.
Even massive music festivals are becoming, year after year after year, more and more about everything else besides the bands.
The bands are selected so as to bring in as many people as possible. They're either legends or the latest It-Thing.
Whatever the lineup is, it's ultimately background music for the people on festival grounds, who have bought clothing, accessories and makeup especially for the occasion, and will spend most of their time taking selfies on the festival grounds.

Of course, many people are actually there for the bands, but many others are there for the "festival experience". Festival experience = business = money-making machines.

Now, let me tell you something about real art.
Real artists, real performance art.
You find it in the underground scenes of the world, in every city's local pubs and venues. That's where you'll find real art.
Us real artists, we care.
So.
Much.
We care about what we put out there. We care about what we do. We care about who we are, and we care about making art.
We care about art, simply put. We are about its past, and we care about its future.
In conversation, recently, a musician I know told me "It's crazy how much money people will be willing to spend on an act, or the shadow/clone of an act they've heard and seen a million times, and to witness the reluctance in paying $10 for anything new."
There are many reasons to that, which are not to be discussed in this editorial, but the point here is that we the artists of the underground, we will play the gig anyway, even if it is $5 a head, and if there's only 10 people in the venue.
Why?
Because to us it matters to release this art, and it matters to us to keep our underground scene going.
The truth is a situation such as the Times Square NYE would never ever happen, should any underground artist be put there to perform his or her art, right there and then, on a night/platform such as this. We are as raw, and as real, as you're gonna get, and we are here to make sure art itself keeps going.
There is the reality of the masses, and there is the Other reality. They have both been coexisting for the longest time, and I know myself to be right in stating that the first reality was the raw, honest reality - the one where people made art to express themselves and share how they experienced Life, so as to try to understand themselves, and others, and find others going through the same kinds of situations.

Lemme tell you one more thing.
Art isn't about money. Art is about connecting humans together through an expression of human experience. Whoever is out there making art, keep doing it.
You're doing something right, and it's the greatest thing.

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Giving 2016 a Last Hurrah, and How to Radiate Light this Yule

2016 was a special year.
Was, still is.

In my October editorial, I mentioned the remarkable (as in quite noticeable) work of Death this year.
It's been a year about Letting Go, and a year where the line began to blur between the pop culture and the alternative culture, to some extent. Kids everywhere embraced Goth apparel full-throttle, started a new moody/ambient synth-pop band every week, and showed off their wild sides with posture collars, bondage-inspired harness-like bras from their neighborhood's lingerie store, and any other affordable accessories from the local sex shop.

Everyone's shadow-side is coming to the light, it seems.
Oh, and everyone's also a witch these days.
Everyone.
It's apparently the cool new it-thing.

Now, will these tokens of the Darkness Within remain in these kids' Instagram feeds in the year to come?
Maybe not, and maybe so.
For as long as embracing the darkness comes to them as a means to better understand themselves, and leads them to evolution, these kids'll be fine.
In the end, what matters is that the Darkness Within is not shut out or repressed, like it once was. What matters is that we can believe in a society evolving into a better openness and understanding of what makes us humans whole: from our darker to our lighter aspects.

And so, as the alternative culture and the pop culture seemingly begin to find balance alongside another, we can give 2016 its last hurrah and choose to be the radiating light of the party -no matter how Goth we are.

As Yule itself is the celebration of the return of the light, and the Sun, and its warmth, and of general rebirth vibes, I came up with a few tips and tricks on how to radiate light this Yule. Get inspired by these traditions almost as old as time, and give them your own, refreshing, XXIst-century twist:

• Celebrate the gradual return of the Sun by lighting as many candles as you see fit every night. This'll automatically bring light and warmth to your room, apartment or home.
• Welcome apple cider vinegar, ginger, honey and turmeric as daily tokens of your diet, along with as many oranges and grapefruit you can take in a day, to guarantee a clinic-free winter.
• Sing aloud and play music -whether caroling with your brothers and sisters, humming along to your favorite album in your car on your way to your next family reunion, or jamming with your friends during your last band practice of the year- the way the music will resonate in and out of you is sure to warm you up and help you re-energize.
• Find some time to have guests over, even if it's just for tea-time, and have as hearty of a meal, or an abundance of snacks, at the ready for them. Better yet, organize a pot-luck and have everyone share a specialty of theirs. Indeed, most, if not all traditions of Yule from cultures past involve indulgence in the most elaborate, decadent meals of the year, and this would be regarded as a way of projecting the desired plenitude of the next year's harvest.
• Try at least one traditional recipe. Yule tastes of very specific spices, namely cinnamon, clove, and star anise. Mulled wine, for example, is very easy to make, and a guaranteed success when served in a wine glass decked up for the holidays. A simple ribbon will do, and your guests will thank you for the extra festive touch, and its ensuing TLC.

Finally, remember that it ends and begins with a smile. Your smile.
For without light and warmth radiating from you to you, how can you dream to shine upon anyone else?
Many people have been going on about how 2016 has been a bad year -a bit of a sad perspective, really. As I mentioned before, 2016 has been a year of Letting Go, that's for sure, but this can only make way for the New. And for some, letting go hasn't just been about people or things, it's also perspectives, ideas, beliefs or concepts that we let go of. Ever heard of a rebirth?

I say light a candle, treat yourself to a cuppa, and take a moment to think of all the good stuff 2016 has brought you. That oughta make you smile.
Watch yourself enter 2017 with eyes shining bright, and plan out your year according to what you want to achieve for yourself in this beautiful year to come.
Remember Life will make sure nothing goes according to plan, and so as long as you commit to the goals you're setting out for yourself, they will achieve themselves regardless.

Love and light to you, and happy Solstice.

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What Matters is the Work - Embracing Your Self

Sacred Feminine, by Cristina McAllister

I read an article recently about the women who made themselves androgynous, or used an undefined-gender of a name, to achieve success. The article examined this, and mentioned their conscious withdrawal of their femininity in order to succeed.

And it got me thinking. It got me thinking of my own uber-use of my femininity in my work, and of other women artists who do the same, all fields of art confounded, and of the XXIst century.

I stand, here and now, as witness of the many aspects, or archetypes, of women in arts, and as we come closer to 2017, I wonder what the future holds for us, and for little girls all over the world.

I examine the models these little girls have, and I come to the conclusion that every lady essentially marches to the beat of her own drum, and that this, beyond anything else, is what we need to get in these little girls' heads.

As spiritual beings given bodies for us to live our human experience, what matters is that we cherish this temple we are given to live in.

Humans come in all shapes, colours and sizes, and our first happy place should be in our bodies.
It is of utmost importance to embrace who we are and what we look like. If you're not happy with what you see in the mirror, do whatcha gotta do to fix it, but make sure you're doing it for yourself.
And then, regardless of and beyond that, know solidly, indestructibly, that what matters even more is that you love what you are inside. Love everything that you are, love what you can do, love your potential as a human being.

If you're going for the gender-bending identity, do it because you want to. If your animus needs release, and you need its release, go for it and make it shine. Just make sure, again, that you're doing it for yourself, because if there's one thing we shouldn't be afraid of anymore, as women in the XXIst century, it's to be our Selves.

Now, the Athena in us will meticulously strategise, and has, since the dawn on time, as her nature intended. The strategist will help us develop our plans by gathering the appropriate elements and information we need to act. An appropriate example is that of J.K. Rowling, who was stated in the article. She used her initials, not her full first name, to get published, knowing the perspective on her work would be different. Long before her, there was George Sand, who lived in a more opressive time for women who sought out careers in the arts. She used a man's name for her work to be published.

Would these women's success have been otherwise, had they used their full, real names, when submitting their work? One can only muse upon alternate possibilities.

Regardless of that, it took only the release of the first Harry Potter novel for the people of the entire world to know that J.K Rowling was indeed a woman, and that they most certainly wanted more of what this woman had to create, and offer.

A strategic choice.

Now, I am not enough of a writer to form a definite statement on the reality of the writing world, so I couldn't come to a clear conclusion on this particular matter. Does a woman's full name on a manuscript truly make a difference in the perspective of editors when they read it, or does the focus stop at the content?
I cannot answer this, but what I can say is that it shouldn't.

I am a musician though, and a performer, and I study the archetypes portrayed by my predecessors and my contemporaries. I can see the clear distinction between, say, Annie Lenox and Madonna. Ultimately, both of these women have had incredible careers, all the while portraying aspects of women at complete opposite ends of the spectrum. Would the outcome of their careers have been otherwise had they presented themselves differently?
One can only muse on alternate possibilities.

As performers, we show our face, our body. We cannot pretend not to be women, even if it's just for a little while. What matters is that we embrace who we are and that we take pride in the face we show to the world. And what matters beyond that is that we do not fear the response of neither men nor of other women. Sometimes I can't believe we're in 2016, in the XXIst century, and that women who've chosen to embrace and expose their femininity are still feared, disregarded, shunned or shamed by men and by other women. The fact that this is a reality in our society shows a clear, underlying problem at the core of humanity, coming down to self-confidence, and perspective.

For the focus, ultimately, in all fields, should be on the woman's work. And if part of her work is her presentation of her self as this uber-femme, then it should be seen as part of her work as well.

Would the democrats have won the recent US elections had a man ran for presidency, and not a woman? One can only muse on alternate possibilities.

The fact remains that this is the XXIst century, and it's high time for little girls everywhere to be taught that they can be and do anything they want, and present themselves however they damn well want.

And it's high time for us all to stop judging a book, or an album, by its cover.
What matters are the words. What matters is the music.
What matters is the work.

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Samhain: Tea With the Dead

2016 has been a very particular year for Death.

I mean.
A hundred thousand people die every year, with and without media coverage.
But, well, it's like 2016 has had Death written all over it.
Think closer to you, or whoever you felt close to you.

Last Spring, I was in a room with Death as It took my Grandmother.
A few months later, I experienced the suicide of a pure-hearted friend. He's recently been coming to visit, by the way.
And then there's my grandfather turning 100 years old this Friday.
I wonder how many conversations he has with Death everyday. He must be very convincing, I'm sure.

Halloween is just around the corner -and so is Devil's Night, and Samhain, and the Day of the Dead.

Actually, before Halloween there was Samhain, the celebration of the end of the harvest season, and the beginning of winter. Halfway between the Fall and the coldest season, it's a festival, a gathering, or a sabbath -depending on which end of the spectrum of the alternative culture you find yourself in. A festival of Darkness, Samhain is seen as a liminal time, when the boundary between this world and the Other World can be crossed more easily.

With All Hallows' Eve falling on a Monday night this year, a friend of mine has decided to hold a Samhain gathering/celebration/ritual, and has nicely invited us to bring along a memory and/or token of the people we still hold dear on the Other Side of the veil. Hardly able to conceal my joy, I decided to dive into some in-depth research about Samhain gatherings, and ways to enjoy a cup of tea with the Dead.

The core of Samhain celebrations lies in beliefs that the souls of the Dead would revisit their homes seeking hospitality. Feasts are held, during the course of which the souls of the Dead are welcomed. Take the few days, or weeks before Samhain, to remember your ancestors. On the night of your Samhain gathering, set a place for them. Get the souls of the Dead excited about coming over by presenting them with the most elaborate, personalized offerings you can think of. Remember though -the Dead may come for a blessing, or may come for a curse.

If you wanna get spooked out, try this late 18th-century Ochertyre ritual. Lay a stone for each of the people present at your Samhain gathering around a bonfire (easy to get one going if you have a small yard and the night skies are clear), and run around it with a torch, or candle. Leave the stones where they are for the night, take a picture of their exact location and position with your smartphone, and in the morning, have a look at them carefully. If any of them is misplaced, or turned over, it's likely to mean that the person for whom the stone was set will not live out the year.
Spooks!

Samhain also happens to make for a perfect time for divination rituals for those gathered at your party. If you want to follow the old traditions, focus the readings on death and/or marriage. Get inspiration for your Samhain gathering with this beautiful 1833 painting entitled Snap-Apple Night, by Daniel Maclise.

So what's up with Samhain making us take our Shadow-side by the hand so easily?

Could it be that our way of revelling in the glory of the Darkness brought upon by mid-fall manifests itself with a yearning to dive inside, and  a desire to rekindle with our Darkness within? Perhaps the majestic way Nature has of dying out in autumn brings us to ponder upon the meaning of Death, and more precisely of our own relationship with Death. Samhain is indeed one of the best times of the year for some in-depth communion, and conversation, with the souls of your beloved beyond the veil, and your deities -whoever they are.

Rest assured, here: you don't a fully-adorned altar to get the Dead to come visit. As it is, the truth is that there's not much that is needed for a good, thorough conversation with the Dead. Indeed, when you let go of your mind trying to control your every thought, you will find yourself more and more open to exterior stimuli coming through, as well as your subconscious. This is why the Dead will often come for a visit in dreams. The human mind's reflex and need to control is more passive than active during our sleep, and so the voices of the Dead can squeeze into our psyche more easily.

And then there's That One Time I Was Opening My Curtains. I remember not thinking about much except perhaps the well-being of my plants, and then I heard and saw through my mind's eye my friend who died over the summer. The second I tried understanding what was going on, the vision faded. So I let go of understanding, and he was back, and finished his sentence.

All I'm saying is you don't need much to speak to the Dead. You need only to be open, and willing to let your mind go of control.  As they are, ritual objects, incense, crystals, candles and such things are mostly used as tools to focus on, and with, while you're letting go of control and opening yourself to whichever it is you're concentrating your energy on. To look at a candle and its dancing flame brings instant focus, and a quick meditative state. The ever-so-slight intoxicating smell of incense and burning herbs will entice your sense of smell; the crystals, as you grab them, intricately revive your sense of touch; the idols as small statues or pantings and prints make for marvelous works of art for the eye to rediscover every time.

By bringing our senses to focus on these tools, and/or performing any form of ritualistic action, we usually end up being more easily able to concentrate on our intent. And yet as concentration arises from lack of distractions, in the end, the intent always settles itself upon a quieter mind. And with the kind of lives we're leading these days, it does seem like a pretty good idea to generally try and treat ourselves to a quieter mind.

Whatever you believe in, whether you be a full-blown pagan, or just cultivating a slight interest for anything/all things magic, welcoming the Light of the Souls from the Other Side seems to be the way to go this Halloween. Take that Monday night to get together with your favorite friends, and indulge in the mystique that is Samhain. Go all out with an altar of candles, incences, herbs and crystals, or keep it simple with just an extra chair at the table.
Remember your ancestors, and have a toast in their honour with a glass of their favorite wine.
You never know who might be coming to say Hi.

You can even make due with just a cup of tea.

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Power to the People - The Social Revolution

Last Monday, I launched a crowdfunding campaign so as to be able to release my second album in the format I wish to release it as.

(I am releasing my 2nd album as a deck of playing cards. Learn more about it here, contribute if you can, and share if you please! Every little bit of help goes a long way for me -and thank you kindly). 

OK, now that that's out of the way, I can move forward with this editorial. 

I've mentioned before that as far as I'm concerned, with my 10 years of experience as an independent musician/artist/creatrix, I am more and more coming to the conclusion that a current revolution we are going through right now is one where the barriers between artists and the people who love them and want them to keep going are more and more falling through, bringing both sides closer than ever, creating thus this celebratory direct connection between them. It makes us artists be able to know who the ones who support us are, it makes us accessible to them, and it makes it easy to share in news, interests and conversation.

Social media and social platforms have been doing this for us for over 15 years now, and as trying as they can sometimes be, there are definitely more perks to them than fallacies. One thing they've definitely brought about is Power to the People.

Indeed, social media, overall, does allow you to choose which kind of news you get and how you get them. It also allows you to be able to react, respond, and spread the word about said-news, no matter what kind of news it is. This, primarily, is what us independent artists live for. 

We need the Power given to the People.

And we need the People to Use their Power. 

I am a keen observer, in anything I do, beyond all. I observe, silent, and I wait, and I ponder, analytical and critical. In launching the campaign, and observing the actions and reactions of the people, I came to the following conclusions:

1- Art does matter to people 

Which is very good. Crucially good. 

For as long as Art will matter to people, Art will be made, and shared, and experienced. And as long as this circle keeps circling, humanity will remain Human.

2- People will help you, no matter what 

Because when people hold something dear to their hearts, it matters to them to be able to help in as many ways as they can. A $10.00 contribution is as valuable as a $250.00 contribution. If a person has only $10 to donate, and they choose to donate it, then this contribution means the world to me. They had $10 to spare, and they chose to invest it in the realisation of my project. I'm good with that.

And those who have nothing to spare (in this economy!) will share. 

People are, generally, selective about what they post -for what they post is a reflection of who they are, or a tiny part of it, anyway. Whoever chose to share the link to my campaign on their public profiles anywhere basically fully endorses Alex Robshaw and her wild playing cards-album project. I'm good with that. 

3- Have the Guts to Do Things

A very widespread observation, and somewhat of a cliché, but clichés are clichés for a reason. If you don't have the guts to do anything with your life, then you won't do anything with your life. Turn dreams into realities. Take risks. Don't be afraid of things like money, or judgement, ignorance, rejection or failure. When you close your eyes, if you pay attention, you will see a Light inside you. Take interest in this Light. Pay attention. It will give you all the answers you need. Then, all you gotta do is Not Be Scared -of falling in love, of trying something new, or in my particular situation, of bringing a project to life, and coming to terms with it, and asking for help to bring it forth.

(I confess here that I spent the better part of the 24hrs prior to the release of the campaign contemplating my entire life choices, wondering if I was going to make even 5$ with the campaign and if I shouldn't just utterly pull the plug on my artist self. I let the thoughts happen, I observed them coming and going, and I remembered afterwards that as there was nothing else I wanted to do with my life, I might as well press GO LIVE on the campaign button.) 

It takes a lot of energy to Not Be Scared of things, and Have Guts to do them. 

Again, as far as I'm concerned, I do believe it's still better to use the energy than to lose it. 

In all, if there's any revolution we can be proud of right now, it's the social media revolution. Now, I am very much aware that there are many people who've spent the better part of the past 15 years examining social media and platforms, analysing them and observing their general and specific effects on human behaviour -which is not the purpose of this editorial. I am an independent artist, writing from her own point of view on a specific situation directly affecting the outcome of a project of mine resulting from a beautiful reaction of people, in concert with a demonstration of their use of their own power, on social media and platforms. 

I am not waiting for funding from record labels that would most likely fund my project were I to change everything about it, nor am I spending countless hours (and energy) gathering the necessary documentation and writing the required texts to submit my project to the government in the hopes of obtaining a grant which I may or may not get. 

No.

I am using my time and energy to directly connect with the people who care about what I do, and who are happy to see Alex Robshaw evolve. And this goes as well any independent artist. If there's one marvellous way for creators to join forces with those who want to experience the outcome of their creativity, it's through social media, and social platforms. 

For it is the XXIst century, and people have, and hold, Power.    

    

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To Care & Not To Care - Insight on The Creative Process

This month, I've been celebrating my first year as a contributor to Intravenous Magazine.
Writing for this online zine delights me.
It forces me to reinvent myself every month, and takes me out of my writing comfort zone.
I write lyrics, first and foremost, and then I also write stories.
Eventually I got my own website, and my own blog, and eventually I stopped caring about certain things I'd write in my journal being too personal to be shared with the world. They were things I cared about, and it mattered more to me to share what I had to say, than feel uneasy about people`s reactions.

As I'll be developing further on in this text, people's reactions is not something one can control, as a creator, and should therefore be taken with a grain of sea salt. You release a creation out for the world to see/feel/read/experience, and there's a part of you that waits, anxiously, for people to express their reactions (or not). You'll actively listen to every word uttered about your creation, and watch people's body language in response to it. And then there's also this part of you that ultimately Does Not Care. This is the part of you wherein lies your pride in your accomplishment, and the reason why you started to create in the first place. This part of you will make you rise regardless of what people may or may not say about your creation, and the part of you that will make you Keep Creating, whether it's the next day, or the next month, or 10 years later.

After a few releases on my personal blog, I realised most people who follow me rather enjoy my writing. They send me private messages about their reaction, or they share my post with the people they know.
It makes me happy to write, and even happier to connect with other people through my words.

And so, last year, someone who's known me for quite some time now eventually convinced me that writing, another avenue than music, is something I should consider more seriously as an eventual career. So I figured I'd pitch out to a bunch of online magazines, and the most positive response I got back was from Intravenous Magazine. The fabulous editor told me he thoroughly enjoyed my writing, and suggested I would write editorials for his zine.

That was a year ago.
I do plan to reach out to more online magazines. Also, a dear friend of mine, together with her wonderful husband, have convinced me to write a book. I'll get to all these projects eventually, but right now, in between everything else in life, and a day job, and my monthly contributions to the site you're reading this from, I'm producing my second album.

Writing for Intravenous Magazine, as mentioned above, requires of me to get inspired every month to write a decent enough amount of words about Something (Anything) related to culture. As a lyricist and a storyteller, to write editorials requires me to draw inspiration from another part of the real world than the one I'm used to. It's mostly a growth experience, and allows me to explore my own perspective and opinion on matters I wouldn't necessarily have otherwise paid much attention to, but truth be told, there are times when I'm more inspired than others. For example, my November 2015 post entitled To Be Goth was written in response to an event that had happened a few days before. Sometimes, a writer gets gifts from Life like those -material presented on a silver platter.

And then there are times, like this month, when no matter how much I tried fishing out to any/all matters of culture, or subculture, I just couldn't hook anything up.
Original Game, my second album, has been taking my entire time and energy and focus, and maybe my head's just too deep in it, and I can't think of anything else.

So I'll share what I've been going through with this project over the past few weeks, which I know is something all creators eventually go through, at the border between the end of front line creation and the beginning of official execution.
The point in time where you're making executive decisions about the direction of your creation, and where you know that the people you're working with or for might actually get angry if you back up and change your mind again.
I'm sure this will touch all of you artists reading this -whether you're visual artists, or writers, or musicians, or film directors, or even jewellers. And for those of you who aren't, well, here's some insight into a very specific part of what is called The Creative Process.
I figured this was still about culture. If anything, it's about the culture within the culture. Or perhaps the culture of the culture within the culture.

As stated above, we creators proceed with our endeavours with the purpose to share them with the world. As we proceed, we first and foremost do so hoping that people will understand what we have created (and why) and secondly, that they will enjoy it.

We approach the release with the dichotomy of the two aforementioned perspectives: that we Deeply Care from the bottom of our hearts and yet also that in the end we do not care about other people's reactions that much, for in the end to each his own life, and one might as well do whatever one wants to do with it. I write We here, but I should really write I, for I do speak of my own personal experience of the past few weeks, but then again I know not to be the only creator with this mindset.

We dread a negative feedback. We dread not being good enough. I dread, above all else, Failure. But the facts remain that taste, in all things, from music to fashion to people to food, is extremely arbitrary. You will ask someone on  a particular day whether they like a certain thing, a their response will be levelled on a series of various circumstances: how they feel that day and why, what happened in the hour prior to your question, whether they've recently eaten or not, their degree of fatigue, and so forth.

As it is, everyone is passionate about something -at least one thing. For example, if you've experienced over the past few months or years a very bad episode of food poisoning, it's likely that no matter what the circumstances of your emotion at the moment of inquiry, you will say a firm enough "No" to the question "Do you like [insert particular food name here].

People do have somewhat defined tastes. But when it comes to releasing a product or a work of art, or a certain meal or dessert or cocktail, to a certain level, the only taste you can trust is your own. If you like and are proud of the product you are releasing, then people's opinion is somewhat irrelevant.

Somewhat.

Of course, when we create something and release it out into the world, we want as many people as possible to embrace it. But you can't please everyone, or force people to like something. Yes, publicity has its way of tricking you into believing that you're supposed to buy X product and that it'll make you happier, so of course you should get it and of course you're gonna like it. That's when an adequate sense of judgement and parsimony should come into play.

The fact remains that you can't please everyone, and the criteria on which you can gague your own level of pleasing are very fickle indeed. It is best, therefore, to settle on your own level of enjoyment, and then to trust one to maybe 4 or 5 other opinions -opinions you can trust that are given for your benefit, and from people you actually respect.
Remember, though, that the more opinions you get, the wider your perspective will spread, which, when it comes to exposing a creation to the world, is not necessarily good.
For example, if you're like me, that one negative comment will make you question everything you've just done, along with the purpose of your existence. It will also make you obsess over your project even more, and have you revisit every single detail and figure out a thousand ways of making it better, or so you'd think.

You'll deconstruct and reconstruct, and in a moment of clarity, you'll stop and say Waddam I doing.
Or you'll say OMG yes.

In all, make what you will of criticism, especially in the context of the production of a creation, but remember that in the end, if you're pleased with your work and you know it in your heart and your gut that you've created something positive that will bring about some form of evolution to humanity, in some way, as well as for yourself, of course, then that's the only opinion that truly matters.

We are what we create, after all.
And you
can't
ever
please
everyone.

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Revolution on Stand-By - The Meaning of Shock Value in 2016

It's funny, or sad, really, how when I was a kid, I really thought the world and people, mostly, would be a lot more evolved.
I thought certain issues would have been dealt with, and that people would be over certain things, most things -like the inequity between 1st and 3rd world countries, for example.
Or genocides to claim a country's riches, or people killing other people in the name of beliefs.
Or the fact that not everyone is heterosexual.
Or women's sexuality.
Or any of society's taboos.

Hard to believe that in 2016, there hasn't been any evolution of any solution, let alone a revolution.

I can't believe there actually are still taboos in 2016.

And yet there are, and people are still likely to get shocked about anything.
And people, mostly, don't wanna be shocked.

For to shock is to shake up reality; to deliver a message, to expose other realities. The shocker will use confrontation as a tool to bring about evolution amongst the shockees.
Whoever out there shocks -please, keep on shocking.
It is of utmost importance to do so, for it is the only way we may keep on evolving.
Let's keep the revolution on stand-by, so it's ready to be declared at any time.

Thing is, it is feels like people don't want a revolution.
A revolution means getting out of your comfort zone.
But as time and history and society go on, it turns out that people fear more and more getting out of their comfort zone -a sad combination of laziness and lack of self-confidence.

And so, considering all the aforementionned issues that I can't believe are still things of the present in this day and age, I understand that people, above all, want to be comforted, not confronted. They wanna know they're not doing so bad after all, that it's ok if they've been lazy and have lacked the confidence and will to change.

As the first to always point out the Balance of All, I must clearly state how I only speak here of the mass, as there are indeed many of us who still strive to bring about evolution to society, let them be artists, scientists, teachers or politicians.

Most people, however, are terrified of what's out there, i.e. Life, and it takes a lot more strength to forge a path than to walk on paved roads.
People don't love themselves enough, or believe in themselves enough to bring their lives to the next level, and then doing so requires effort upon effort, and tremendous amounts of work, and energy, and time (trust me).
And then the thing about terrified people is that they won't be doing much with their own lives. They'll do/watch/wear/listen to what everyone else is, and get their thrills out of a TV series, an outrageous bachelor/ette party, or Siracha sauce. They won't be going out of their way to change and/or save the world, let alone change and/or save themselves. Humans want to be comforted in it being ok to not do too much. Humans do not want to be shaken up and be confronted with the fact that there is so much more to be done for the world to be a better place, and that it starts with themselves.

This is why animal videos are so popular on the Internet. Those, and videos of ordinary people doing ordinary things, like cooking, or silly things, like looking like Chewbacca.
Mostly, these videos comfort people, and make them feel like it could be them, too, or that they're better than that, or Hey, why don't I post a video of my cat as well and get 80 000 views too!

There's also the issue of safe-spaces, which I'll only tackle on the surface by putting it out there that instead of hidding in your safe space, how about you get out, face the world, grow a spine and evolve into a fearless human being.

And then it's this weird dichotomy of how, in a way, also, in 2016, it's like nothing's shocking anymore. Every possible human boundary has already been pushed, news headlines have become this repetitive shock-scheme, numbing us out. I mean, when you think about it, that's what the news are about: shocking headlines. Bombs and killings, bombs and killings, bombs and killing -aimed at overwhelming the average citizen so much that of course, when it comes to entertaiment, people are likelier to choose artists that sound and feel like comfort food.

There was a time when music drove the culture, and when music did mean a revolution, change.
Seems like from the 70s to the mid-90s, society embraced shock-value, and that people fought for their right to evolution, through the music they listened to, amongst other art mediums. So what happened?

The music of today is becoming emotionless, tamed -guys singing in falsetto and girls with a 5-note range is what's popular right now. If you do sing your guts out, well, you're too intense for most people. When it comes to music, it's like people don't want it to voice their emotions. They want background music, music to safely escape from their emotions with.
The average human will want to get a hug and go to bed thinking the world isn't so bad after all. The average human will not want to go to bed hoping the night will bring him guidance as to what to do concretely to make the world a better place.

Funny, or sad, really, how when it comes to saving ourselves, we would rather it be somebody else. But when it comes for saviors to manifest themselves, and for us to select one, or a few, the ego steps in, and so, as humans usually don't enjoy feeling like other humans are greater than them -have more courage, guts, passion, will-power, whatever you wanna call it. So the would-be saviors are deemed as shockers, and are censored, and banned.

It makes it hard for society to renew itself when it hates/fears itself so much, and is too lazy to care. Or are we perhaps too jaded because everything's already been done? For example: there was Alice Cooper, and then there was Rob Zombie, and then there was Marilyn Manson. And now, well, any young goth singer out there trying to be the new That, it's not like he'd be bringing about anything more shocking than what his predecessors/idols have already brought about. He's mostly preserving the archetype.
Which is an extremely good thing.
Why? Because the answer to my question above is No. I've experienced way too many moments of would-be-shaming-were-I-to-care to say that society is jaded.

I believe the right thing to say is that society might be tired of being shocked, because of shock-overload from the media. Mostly, society would like everything to be cotton-candy. Mostly, especially over the past few months, humans would like to wake up one day and hear that World Peace has Now been proclaimed.  and as for their own lives, humans would like to be able to walk the course of existence effortlessly -float through that cotton-candy, basically. People are likely to avoid any situation that will make for any overload of emotions because, for the most part, humans don't know how to control Emotions. Emotions lead to Irrationality, which leads to Doing Things You're Not Usually Doing, leading to Stepping Out Of Your Comfort Zone, leading into The Unknown, aka humans' one great fear.

Now, I'm not saying I'm above this. I fear the unknown as much as the next human. But then I'm also curious, with an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and find the outcome of the unknown to be a lot more enticing and appealing than the outcome of what has already been tried and tested and approved by everybody else.

Am I that much of a shocker? Not really. I never thought so anyway.
I'm mostly preserving the archetype.
But recently, someone deemed my promo photographs as scandalous.
Again. In 2016.
I therefore proclaim myself a Shocker.

It is my nature and purpose to shock you.
To pull you out of your comfort zone.
To say that which will not be said, to expose that which covers itself up.
To question everything -I must know the Why of Everything, in order for me to understand Everything.
In a post on my personal blog, www.alexrobshaw.com, I once wrote how I am not PG. My art is for people who have experienced life and aren't afraid to do so.

Thing is, most people are terrified of what's out there -life.
But it's time for a revolution, and I know it has to start with me.

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The Future of Music

So I'm producing my second album, and having already released a first, I'm perhaps a lot more conscious of the amount of time, money, energy, and sacrifices that this project entitles me to, and so lately I've been finding myself questioning more and more why I'm doing it.

The answer is that mostly, my sole interests in life lie in creating music, developing a creative universe where as many people as possible will feel welcomed in, and evolving as an artist, above all.
So if I know this to be my purpose, why am I questionning myself?

Because the reality of the music industry, between when I was a kid in the early 90s and now, has changed SO MUCH, and the term industry has been implanted at the core of the business (read the editorial I wrote on the matter a few months ago), to the point where we are so saturated with [highly questionable] music that if I didn't have the following I have now, or the vital need to express myself and evolve through music, I probably wouldn't do it anymore.

Over the past 15 years, music has experienced a tremendous evolution in its business and its technology. From Napster to LimeWire, to Songza, to YouTube to Spotify, music has become so easily accessible -and yet, who's making the money? Certainly not the thousand thousands artists you're likely to find on these websites. Moreover, the concept of the "album", originally a sonic tale averaging on 14 chapters, that an artist would create, has seemingly been replaced by the 99¢ song you can buy (that is IF you buy it). All the aforementioned websites offer ways that you can get a song for free. And then there's the artist's dire need for exposure, which makes it so that we're always likely to give away at least one song for free off a release, in the hope that someone will download the free song, share it with as many people as possible, and eventually, an album sale will ensue, or a packed venue.

As independant artists, we ask ourselves, inevitably, what's the point of developing a creative universe, of releasing a full-length album. You do it because you have to, because there's this urge, this force in and out of you that propels you to make art first, and a product, second. In other words, you're going to create your art, and then find the tools and outlets that will appropriately help you to put your art out for the world to experience. And your dream/heart's desire/goal thus becomes to be able to share your art with as many people as you can.

And then there's the other people, who aren't quite exactly artists, but people with a little bit of talent and usually a lot greater budget, who want to "be famous" and will get help from  people to get an EP out there, and won't be afraid to spend/lose money to pursue their dream of being on the cover of a magazine.

The dream. Many people have it, coming from a different angle.
And if there's one thing that has horrifyingly developed over the past 10 years, it's platforms designated to suck out as many people's money by exploiting said-dream of succeeding at a music career.

Name one festival, for example, that doesn't ask you to pay a fee to apply for it.
And if there's no fee for playing said-festival, then its organization is inevitably highly questionable.

When your dream of a successful music career becomes your life goal, aka you become willing to do anything to make it, you're plunging intro a dark, dark ocean filled with sharks and leaches which's sole purpose is to suck every dollar they can out of you. Platforms like Sonicbids abound, and portray one of the many hideous money-making gimmicks the music business has come to. Festivals will now choose to advertise their application periods through these websites, and so you've got this one website you apply to (Sonicbids), and have access to all the festival applications of the world, pretty much. Or you settle for following all the festivals' Twitter accounts, or mailing lists, if the fest has one. But the fact remains that every festival has an application fee, and you're most likely to never see that money again. And then if you do play the festival, there's a very high chance you're not getting paid, and that you're even losing money in the end. Calculate how much you spent to get a spot on that festival bill, how much money you're spending on gear, paying your bandmates, and on gas getting there (or a plane ticket), vs how much you're getting back. If you've sold merch, you're lucky. If you get any form of revenue, you're even luckier. If not, well, you're likely to be more in debt than anything else, and that's the case of most gigs out there.

And then there's platforms of music distribution, like CDBaby, which are coming to the stage of re-evaluation in their timeline. CDBaby basically asks you for a minimum subscription fee, giving you in exchange the distribution of your music on a variety of streaming websites. These websites take your music, and add it to their catalog. You'll do this in the hope that somebody out there, or as many people as possible, will find you out there, and buy your music, and share it, and come to your shows.

The reality is that unless you're graced with as huge as possible of a marketing budget, there's not a high chance of you actually ever seeing that money back. You're pretty much renting out your music to streaming websites.

Over the past week, my Twitter feed graced me with the news of the highly possible forthcoming end of iTunes, which easily offers the worse possible kind of bargain an independent artist can put his/her music out on. Indeed, iTunes will charge you to put your music on their site, and then keep the money you're making on album/song sales until you qualify as a profitable revenue, according to their standards. Til then, every dollar someone decides to spend on you through iTunes goes directly to iTunes (as if they needed your money more than you do!).

We're coming at a time where the appeal of the new technology/means has worn off. Artists have tried the multitude of websites (or downward-spiral-k-holes) out there to distribute and showcase their music, and after at least 10 years of trials and usage, they're coming to conclusions:

1- the amount of sharks and leaches out there is infinitely exponential to that of, say, starfish
2- and yet there ARE starfish, so technology isn't always so bad
3- what matters is that you learn how to swim

The DIY approach remains an independant artist's favorite, and in a world where we now have countless ways of connecting directly with our followers (social media), well, when it comes to sharing and selling our music, we want to be able to keep the same level of proximity. A platform like Bandcamp thus comes out as the clear, obvious, starfish option. Bandcamp lets you upload your music for free, and basically will, from time to time take a minimal amount of your sales as its cut.
But the agreement remains: people who buy your music from Bandcamp pay you directly. There's no intermediate between your supporters and your self, and your bank account. Your profits go straight to your Paypal account, and if, like me, you've linked it straight to your bank account, well, there you have it. And what is more, Bandcamp provide you with an overture to the world through the well-thought-out tags you'll put to your music. Indeed, its users can basically search artists that sound like X., and find your page. This happened to me with a follower from Germany!

The sharks and leaches will suck out a-plenty, but the validity of their ways, in the long-run, never prevails -as in every ocean-sphere of life. Such is Karma. In the long-run, the life-experience run, people will try, test and come to terms with results. Us independant artists are becoming more and more educated, and having been fooled once, more often than not with swear to ourselves not to be fooled twice.

So what of the future of music? From an independent musician's perspective, I daresay that the platforms where artists can get a direct contact with their supporters definitely stand as the winning models. Throughout history, trends have come, and eventually gone. Therefore, whoever out there is just doing their own thing might as well keep on doing it.

You're doing this for yourself, first, and  you've got to remember that.

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The Human Culture

The thing about cultures is that they seem to divide, yet intertwine to become one and the same: the human culture.

It's something I kind of always had subconsciously understood, but never actually truly witnessed until my grand-mother's funeral last Saturday. The funeral home had a chapel, and in the chapel stood flag posts depicting every religion of the world.
Sort-of a multi-purpose room/chapel.

It dawned upon me that what mattered is not so much the place where the service occurs. What matters is what's in people's hearts. To each culture their own way of saying goodbye. But then, we're all saying goodbye.

Each culture has its rites, namely birth, the introduction of a human being in a family, a community, a culture; marriage, the union of 2 beings through love, bringing families together; and death, the ultimate rite of passage, bringing the human being into its next plane of existence.

What makes for the divide is the words used, the clothing worn, the gods worshipped, and the traditions observed. In other words, the richness of the diversity of the world. And then, true to the nature of humans evolving, we come to make our own traditions within our families, our friends, and our communities.

As I grow older, and observe the world itself growing older alongside, I often feel like the world, and human evolution, is at a crossroads. Like we're halfway between traditions that were there before the eldest people alive were even born, and a completely new world and human state of mind, with no points of reference to be found anywhere else but in the visions of the future from old sci-fi movies.

And then on one hand, you've got people embracing the concept of putting computer chips inside human bodies, and on the other, we've got more and more parents refusing vaccines for their children, claiming they do more harm than protection.
Halfway between grassroots and space station vacations.

Cultures everywhere are blending, or more like, anyone living in one of the major cities of the world is likely, at some point or another, to pick and choose elements of all the other cultures surrounding them, and make it their own. Figuring out what rings true inside, and what doesn't, and in the midst of all these cultures, finding who we really are.
Such is the core of human culture.

We breathe in life for the first time, and before we breathe it out for the last, well, we spend our time discovering ourselves, as individuals, in a culture, through a community, a family, a society. Our culture defines who we are, or rather, we define ourselves through the many cultures we choose to embrace.

So whether you're goth, punk or rockabilly, embracing practices in paganism, Buddhism or Hinduism, or which ever culture that strikes a chord inside, what matters is that through these, you find yourself and stay true to your heart.

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The Bombing Culture - Of Ego and Purpose

'Godself' by Alex Grey


All humans have the divine ability to create.
As a creative force, it is thus my purpose to bring forth the very best of what I can produce with this power I hold. Creativity has defined itself through me as music and words, and my ego-self through my creative purpose has deemed herself as Alex Robshaw.

The ego. We all have one. The ego wants, the ego needs, the ego dreams, the ego destroys, the ego revels and delights and goes mad; the ego lusts and the ego despairs. The ego fears and the ego dares.

All living creatures have an ego, even animals, one could argue. Through one's life experience, it is certainly a good exercise to develop an ego-less perspective, and find its balance with a perspective of self-love and self-respect.
To be humble yet proud.
To love yourself without being narcissistic.
It is the exercise of a lifetime.

And so, when observing the nature of purpose, facing the inevitable presence of the ego, I cannot help but wonder how one can equate the purpose-feeling of having to share a religion, dogma, or lifestyle, with dropping a bomb on those who've chosen to believe in something else.

As it is, most monotheist religions are driven by fear. Behave a certain way or fear the One God's wrath. And you are force-fed this theory as a child, in your sponge-brain years, or at a moment in your life where you're so vulnerable that you'll be ready and willing to put your entire faith in whatever is reaching you in, to feel like you're part of something greater than yourself.

You thus come to feel it as your purpose to share your religious beliefs (otherwise known as preaching) and your ego will feel attacked when confronted with counter-beliefs. To disagree and argue is one thing, but to drop bombs on those who disagree with you?
That, to me, is a helluva lot of ego, and not a lotta purpose.

So what of bombs?
Explosives in themselves can be useful when used to destroy buildings that are already crumbling, so as to build a new one, or to make way underground for public transportation services or living accommodations. But to use bombs to destroy people -especially in the name of an idea or a perspective (for that is what religions are, really), well, that is, to me, simply a matter of too many egos in fear, together in one room feeding off each other's weaknesses, agreeing that the only way out of their self-inflicted misery is to kill anyone who doesn't think like them.

I hate politics, or rather, I hate being political. I'm lyrical, and musical.
But when I look at children, and at the happy round belies of pregnant women, and I hear or read of news of yet another bomb dropped in a god's name, and realize how frequent these are becoming, I find the world so hopeless, and wonder what can be done in 2016 to save it.

Never underestimate the power of egos in fear, especially if they have an easy access to explosives.

Since the dawn of time, human how have feared being the smaller nation decided to conquer more lands by force, war and blood. To kill each other out of fear of not being the greater force or nation is something that's seemingly engraved in the ways of human behaviour. You're scared of them because they're different from you? Kill them, show them you're better than them by gutting them and destroying everything they are and everything they have.

It's so much easier than to choose to love and trust, to open your mind and your heart and accept that what makes this world so amazing is it diversity.

There are so many cultures, and cultures within cultures in this world, and the beauty of evolution lies in discovering yourself through them, and your own, the culture you were brought in, so as to define your own personal culture.
For I could enjoy moroccan mint tea with two Muslim women, and get a very different version of the Q'ran from each of them.  Reality is, after all, a multi-faceted jewel which reflects the light of its beholder perfectly.

*

At the core of the problem of people bombing other people to get a point across lies the problem of the children of the world, for generations upon generations upon generations, being raised in fear, not love. It's learned behaviour, and the best we can do is to understand how to unlearn, and relearn, how to respect each other and our own selves, and find that perfect balance between purpose and ego.
To love yourself without being narcissistic, and to accept things just as they are, and to find ways to solve issues through living kindness and openness.

And as for us artists -me -the ego, well, I'll just keep on making music.

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Of Talent & Money

There was a time when talent in an artist
was actually something that audiences would seek. Audiences wanted to experience a live performance of any kind of Art -through shock, awe, desire, etc. There was a time when cultural entertainment wasn't an industry. It was a business, yes, and it's been a business for a very long time. There was this place you would go to, pay an entrance fee and look at art on the walls, or catch the live performances of a variety of artists. Or, you would attend an event, and musicians would be paid to be there and perform at the best of their abilities.

It was about the money, yes, but on perhaps a lot more of a balanced scale with the execution of the talent.

So what of talent? What defines talent? It's easy to respond to the question What is marketable, but the question What is talent is perhaps harder to answer objectively.
The dictionary defines talent as:
1- an ancient unit of weight and value
2- the natural endowments of a person
3- a special, often creative or artistic aptitude
4- mental power: ABILITY
5- a person of talent
SYN: genius, gift, faculty, aptitude, knack

So talent, in itself, is an acknowledgeable fact. It is not about whether you like it or not, it is the ability you will recognize in someone. This person can sing-act-dance-draw-paint well. You cannot say they don't if you don't like it. Taste is subjective. Talent is objective.

These days, when observing the pop-tart culture, we can definitely state that before talent, the major production companies of any form of art will choose to focus on the money-making potential of the artists they select for the masses to enjoy -or rather, pay for.

Entertainment has become an industry -force-fed, fast-food entertainment; lots of bright lights to blind the general public from the emptiness of the lack of content, the lack of the actual, raw experience of genuine talent. The mass media will provide you with their own specific, financed selection of talent, and you choose amongst what they're offering you what you are willing to spend your money on.

 It's not so much that people aren't seeking talent anymore, but it appears that the selection of talent presented on a mass scale these days doesn't account to much. So where can one seek and find pure, authentic, raw talent? In the alternative culture of course, the one place where artists can freely develop as rich of a creative universe as they want, and can. and enjoy their own evolution through their personal creative process.

The days where artists were given free reign on their own artistic development are long gone, and even though it may seem that some of them are given more of a leeway, underneath it all will lie a clause in a contract stating that they have to keep looking a certain way, or to make sure they never write about a certain subject, and above all, that they keep selling and/or endorse this or that product.

The artists themselves thus pay the price for mass distribution, by forfeiting their personal creative evolution. Such is the nature of life, events, and their stories; the double-sided coin.
And money runs the world.

So on one side of the spectrum, you've got the artists that the majors will choose to invest in, and on the other side, you've got the artists who have to pay out of their own pockets to keep producing themselves and releasing their Art for the world to see.

Self-funded shows abound on the underground scenes or every form of art. Artists will pay for venues to hold their events, and charge 5 to 15$ at the door as fair ticket prices -and keep it on the cheaper side, so that anyone can afford it, and even attract a potential new comer amongst the passers-by on the street that night. They will buy all their equipment, supplies and costumes, and pay for every single piece of work they produce -and the more you aspire to be able to live of this talent of yours, the more you will [be willing to] invest/spend on your art.
And the quality of what you choose to produce and release will also, subsequently, depend on the amount of money you'll be willing to invest in yourself.

What the word "industry" instead of "business" when placed after the word Entertainment instituted in our culture is basically how much are you willing to pay for this or that artist; how much are you willing to sacrifice in their name? How can we turn this artist into something that'll  make people spend their money, so as to make other people make money, by indirectly making people spend more of their money on other products that they will somehow subconsciously link to these artists-products?

Observe here an entire economy process.

What kind of a culture are we forging here, when basing ourselves on the entertainment for the masses?
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The difference between the pop-tart culture and the alternative culture is thus not so much the talent itself as it is, seemingly, finance.
Right.
And the execution of the talent, of course.
But this remains in the hands of the artist, so it comes down to what the artist enjoys more: the amount of money they're making out of their art, or the exploration and evolution of their creative selves. The price of making it.
But for whom are you indeed "making it", and what are you making, exactly?

It then comes down to the amount of people who will experience the shape of your name written on the wall of history. And yet, when contemplating said-wall of history, one cannot even begin to count the number of artists who only became truly famous/successful when they died.

They died, but their talent, and its finest executions, lived on and marked a point in history.

So in the end, it is about talent, when considering the evolution of Art History as a whole.
Or culture itself, as a whole.

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Of Sex & Shame

It’s ironic that in 2016, sexuality is still something that is being shunned, shamed, and shut out of the mechanism of human behaviour in society.
Ironic, because we also live in a world where there is so much sex available, everywhere, all the time.
The subtlety of thinking lies in the fact that the sex is indeed available, but it is outside of our selves. We are not taught to open up inside to our sexuality, to learn how to understand ourselves through sex.

You’re horny? Here’s everything you can look at to get off. No need to figure out why. No need to understand. There’s porn, there’s the strip clubs and burlesque shows, there’s the escorts, the vibrators and the blowup dolls.
Meanwhile, they’re completely removing sex ed from the school curriculums.
Figure that one out. Like it doesn’t matter anymore to learn about sex, and the way your body works, and how to protect yourself from STIs, and unwanted pregnancies.

Yesterday, someone made a derogatory comment towards me in regards to my active sex life. It’s never happened to my face, before.
I made a joke out of it, because yes, I have an active sex life, and I love it. I love sex, I love connecting with people through sex, and above all, I love learning more and more about myself, every time, through sex. I fully acknowledge how I do wear my sexuality on my sleeve, and I never believed in shaming sexuality. To me, it would be like shaming someone for anything they do, or like.

So I made a joke out of that comment. Because arguments on that topic have been going on for years and years, and I feel that in 2016, it’s high time they came to an end, and that we should look on the other side, for a change. For the sake of evolution.
Sex is one of the greatest ways to discover yourself. But people fail at it. Like they pretty much fail at discovering their own selves, more often than not.
Which is a shame, in itself, in 2016. It’s a shame to see how people keep constantly looking for things outside themselves to fill up their lives.
Instead of indulging in diving inside to figure themselves out, to learn how to love themselves better and accept everything that makes them who they are, and understand what they need to transform inside, so as to keep becoming a better person, if only for themselves.

Sexuality is a major part of who I am, and of my art. 'Original Game', my second album, is a study of desire, of sex as this game we play with ourselves and with others. The songs are intended for you to feel like they’re having sex with you, as you listen to them, as you let their groove take over you.
Just the way I like to write music.
Just the way I like music.
I know sex may not be as important to others as it is to me, but discovering and understanding yourself, that’s something that should be everyone’s priority. That’s how we humans should be raised. But we’re not. We are raised to judge, and fear, and evade what is inside ourselves.
And to judge, fear and evade everything we are not.
For me to have been shunned for being promiscuous means only that fear of evolution is always closer to me than I’d think it would be, that the minds and hearts of people are not where I would like them to be, sometimes.
And that, to me, is a shame.
The pleasure of life is an open mind, that’s a line in one of the songs from my Original Game.
So let me stick to that.

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The Art of Vaudeville - Of Traditions in Alternative Arts

Unoccupied, a dressing room is just a big room, or a big room holding many smaller, half-closed rooms. A set of counters, mirrors and lots of strategically-placed lights, along with chairs and coat racks, set the tone for its purpose. In a dressing room, you will dress down, and dress up -and dress down again, and back up, into the many shapes of your Self.

A dressing room is a place of transformation, and will become as lively as the people who will come into it, and turn their Everyday Selves (or in my case last night, turn their Everyday-Montreal-Winter-Selves) into their Stage Selves, their Show Selves, their Passion Selves. Their True Selves.

And so, when put together in a dressing room in 2016, a group of artists performing in a New Style Vaudeville cabaret will turn the said-dressing room into a place of traditions, rituals and secrets, and a place of focus, rehearsals and the shaping of stories. People, half-dressed and half made-up, will drop in and out of conversations as often as they'll drop in and out of rooms, and it is as common to speak of sage and mythology as it is to speak of glitter and online crowdfunding campaigns.  

The day before performing for the very first time in a Vaudeville-inspired cabaret, I wondered of many things. I wondered of the experience of the dressing room, but mostly, I wondered about the Art of Vaudeville.

When looking at its history, Vaudeville comes across as this open form of entertainment, where any talented, well-rehearsed and above all original performance artist could see a way of presenting his or her act to the world. The glory years of Vaudeville were seemingly the 1890s, and its decline began in the early 1910s with the rise of cinema, along with its new standards of beauty, its dictation of what culture should be, and what it should be represented by. Soon enough, the culture of modern society would be taken over by the imperialism of Hollywood, thus losing every sense of break-through authenticity and social reflection.
On the surface, of course.
On the clearly visible, glimpse-of-the-eye surface, when looking at the forest and not the trees.

One of the things about humans is resilience, for if some of us or even just one of us believes in something, we will keep on standing, fighting and living for what we believe in, and eventually associate with like-minded folks, creating a solid and ever-expanding community that will keep a flame strong. And then, one of the things about life is balance, and therefore every surface has its depth, and every cultural movement has its counter-attack. In other words, pop (tart) culture could not be defined as it is if there was no alternative culture.

Vaudeville thus never truly died, and indeed has been experiencing a beautiful, refreshing revival since the early 2000s. This revival stands as an evolution, not a mimic, for the means used to both produce the show, and promote it, along with the messages and stories behind the performances, are very much in tune with the times. Computers are used to create and generate lighting effects and playlists from music downloaded on USB key, magicians tell tales of gamblers playing the family's income and savings for a TV in a traditional Tarot card and coins trick, and burlesque performers of every size, shape and gender (or lack-of) are likely to strip to the sounds of dubstep.

However, the beauty of its underground form remains. In true, alternative culture fashion, these kinds of New Vaudeville shows will be presented in smaller, often second-floor or basement venues and cabarets, and will only be advertized on social media, within a very solid, supportive and tight-knit community of performers and aficionados of every possible kind of alternative art form out there. And of course, there will not be any kind of interest in funding available from the government, or advertisement by major labels or production companies. These shows are organized and funded by the artists themselves, who will more often than not have one or many jobs on the side in order to be able to keep doing what they're doing.

And the main reason why the beauty of its underground form remains is because Vaudeville never truly died, for generations upon generations of so-called side-show acts, circus performers, burlesque dancers, occult magicians, unfathomable drag kings and queens, and uncensorable singer-songwriters and actors have continuously been opening up to each other, sharing in inspiration, feeding off each other's art. Exchanges like these are usually witnessed in dressing rooms.

After all, we owe it to each other to keep the traditions of the alternative arts strong -starting with the Arts themselves.

So what makes us alternative artists hold on to these traditional alternative arts?
Possibly, if not absolutely and irrevocably, the mere sight or sound of anything related to pop-tart mass-media culture. For every movement has a counter-movement, and every blonde pop star will have an industrial-dark cabaret raven-haired nemesis. Every "proper" form of art has its dirty side, and its dirty side is usually where its core lies.

And then maybe, just maybe, it's not so much that we, the artists, are the ones holding onto the art form. Maybe, just maybe, it's the art forms that are carefully selecting, and holding on to us -the Us, You or Me that you're likely to meet in a dressing room.

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