Saturday June 16, 2006

Dayjob days

Yay, photo's are up.

So yesterday I did something one should never do in the middle of a creative project. I talked to someone from [cue scarey minor chords] *The Industry*. Someone who's business is making money off music - unfortunately, someone intimately connected to me and mine. God bless him, he's not making a shiteload of money off *me*. But it wasn't a great conversation. And I came away with the following thoughts in my head:

1. I am financially irresponsible to be doing this retreat when I should be looking for work so I can pay my bills, pay for this laptop, pay off my credit card, pay off my student loan, get my car fixed and possibly even have some money to take with me to Australia in August so I can eat while I'm over there.

2. What's the point of recording a new album and putting all that effort, time, money and energy into it when it'll probably take another 3 years to sell 1,000 ie for me to even begin to see any of the money again?

3. Why don't I stop kidding myself that I'm any kind of songwriter and just make an album of cover songs - preferably in Maori - that my record company can sell easily and we can both have a bit of money to pay our rent.

The moral of the story is: Be careful who you talk to when you're in retreat.

Seriously. It's almost like I have to treat myself as tapu, or this time as tapu - in all senses. Not just tapu as in 'set aside', but tapu as in being careful what energy I allow in - and that means conversations, face-to-face contact, whatever.

Such a sensitive soul. Next time I'd like to come back as one of these.

On the other side of the coin, big ups to Tyree, Kirsty, Karen C, Sian and Chris for their kind words.

I've got today, tomorrow and Monday to finish my latest load of Te Papa work. Then back up to the bach, hopefully Monday afternoon. Gonna try and record 'Harm' and 'I Can Run' later today. And also 'Remember' - a song I wrote a while ago, which feels like it may fit nicely amongst these new ones.

x

H