I've spent my whole life playing music in such a wide variety of settings. Music is my lifestyle, my vocation, my thing.
To write music that touches people, and to play for people who are open to the positive, healing effects of music.
We change the world every day. Nothing is static, all is in flux. Your actions and mine continually morph reality and change it. So if you feel like you want to change the world and make it better, make yourself better and the world will respond in kind.
That's hard to say, since my whole lifetime has been filled with music. Maybe "Do You Hear The People Sing?" from LES MISERABLES
I'll put on Zeppelin, Bob Marley, The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Jeff Buckley, Pink Floyd, Muddy Waters, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, or The Band any day. I also like some jazz here and there. Even though much of my newer music sits firmly in a country music ballpark I don't listen much to country.
Something internal that is difficult to describe. There's almost a compulsion to write and play. When the internal spark interfaces with the external phenomena, songs emerge.
Depending on the song, the message changes. Overall, however, I'm about positive vibes, personal empowerment, rejection of oppressive constructs, communion with nature, and strong personal relationships.
Home.
I think there's a trap many people fall into which makes us nostalgic for a past that maybe never was. I wonder if "musicians' reality today" is really that much different than it has always been. There was a brief blip in history for a few decades where there was the possibility for an average person with talent to become world famous and obscenely wealthy from their music, but through a longer lens I believe that musicians have always been a bit on the outside of society. I think we provide a service that people crave and need, but in order to access the creative wellspring of inspiration one necessarily exists a bit outside of the main stream of life. So I could come up with a bunch of suggestions for how to make streaming more economically advantageous or opine about the golden era of record sales, but I rather like to think that those who are driven to create should do so regardless of the external circumstances.
I'm new to the site so I don't know just yet, but it seems easy to use!
It would be nice to have everything you wanted, but that doesn't make sense to me. I guess I'd say I wish it were more standard practice in the US to pay musicians for their services, as I know far too many people (myself included) who have payed to play at venues or are expected to work for nothing. I don't believe it's like that everywhere (certainly not here in Sweden), but that's a big problem in the US.
Yes, I've been a member of the "local scene" in all the places I've lived by playing shows, attending other musicians' shows, collaboration in performance and recordings, organising and writing about events, and regularly attending open mic nights.
You tell me.
I'm not sure who every has or has not heard of, but my favourite "underground" groups or artists are Erica Russo Not Blood, Paint Dope Knife Genevieve and Hemmy Tokalos Xuluprophet