Doin’ The Thing

Friday is about music. So links and playlists. A bit more esoteric than usual today, and more about writing than music — but it’s writing about music. And there’s still the links and a playlist, etc.

I’m up early, before anyone else in my house anyway. You might be reading this much later, so there’s no proof of how early I was up — even the date-stamp of when this newsletter hit your inbox or was shared on social media won’t tell the truth of the time when I got out of bed. That’s fine. That’s how it is. But you’ll trust me, by now, I got up early…

I had to.

Years of writing about music every Friday (before this it was a daily music blog that ended the week always with an attempt at a more interactive topic) means I’ve always had homework. Most often the Friday post is done late at night on Thursday, into the wee small hours of Friday’s beginning…but sometimes I’d be stumped of a topic, or just tired. And I would have to get up at four or five or six AM and rush something out before starting my working day proper.

I always kinda liked that rush too.

Today, I’m up and listening to Doin’ The Thing, by The Horace Silver Quintet, a live album from 1961. I didn’t pre-plan this, in fact I’ve never heard this album before. At least not that I’m aware. And damn, it’s good. It’s doing everything an early-start record should do. I’m engaged, but not overpowered by it.

Writing about music, commenting on it, thinking alongside it, recommending it, interacting with it in some way, preparing it as a topic — creating a small distraction in the day of the potential reader, and/or unburdening myself of something I knew was on my mind and had weighed heavy, or didn’t know was on my mind at all until I sat down at the keyboard and ripped open a vein to use the blood I could muster to type what I did… [dramatic] — this has been something I’ve been doing for so long now I can’t remember having a nervous first go. But it must have happened.

Sometime in 2007 I wrote my first few blog entries for Stuff.co.nz. I’d already been writing reviews for five or six years for the newspaper, and for a few years before that for a handful of publications. I’d already been talking about music live on TV on the Good Morning show —

— I had already been, um, doin’ the thing…

But the first few months of blogging every day was a scramble. It was exhilarating. It was wild. It was a mess. And occasionally I cursed myself — no one else to blame — for creating the world I was stepping into. I’d watched Almost Famous, ahead of that I’d read a hundred music biographies, listened to a thousand albums, done some 10,000 hours already and was signing on for a million more. Paycheque unknown. Commissioning editors unwilling. Accounts departments unhelpful.

It never wasn’t a scramble. I just grew to love the scramble, or feel some calm within its storm. Or recognise I needed it for some weird reason, wasn’t myself without it.

People have this idea, or certainly had this idea, that if you were out in print, or spray-paying the walls of the internet on a site owned by a newspaper, you were making some money.

I was not.

I’ve never been good at getting paid. And I’m glad actually. If I was good at sorting out payment for such things, if a world (still) existed where people writing about music were making bank, then I’d have fallen into the traps and tropes of saying nice things always, of having no spine.

A few years ago, I really stepped out of the way. I was sick and tired of people bringing up my name as some example of a road-hog. I was at the wheel so anyone else couldn’t be. We needed more female representation, we needed younger people, we needed fresh ideas, we needed someone not so stale, we needed balanced critics. We needed this. We needed that.

I pulled over completely.

Redesigned my writing space here on Substack, and made my Friday music missives about whatever I wanted — this had actually always been the way. It was no trick, no leap, no move. But the optics suggested I was done. And when The Spinoff reported on the death of music journalism, about five years after I had released a book called that, they threw me the last bits of a bone by saying even I was missed, you know, because at least I turned up. They thought I wasn’t worth reading, had been some bully, some space-hogger, too dominant, and not willing enough to roll over and say the nice things after going to the junket, and pantomiming music journalism, but apparently I was reliable at least. And they had come to miss that. Or were at least acknowledging I existed.

They did all this, by the way, from their platform that had removed its music-writing entirely. So, you know, having a whinge, when they could have actually kept turning up, and allowing writers to do so. But no. The conditions no longer suited them. No one was paying for ads and space. No one was reading writing about music. No one was turning up to do it for free. But they felt fine taking down their scaffolding, selling off their equipment, and then criticising how the house next door managed its maintenance and repairs. The weeds grew all about their site, but they could still peer above and mock anyone else for not gardening hard enough.

One funny thing I’ve noticed, since being back on the radio speaking about music —

— since committing to writing some actual record reviews again here —

— is no one is complaining about the old, boring, white guy at the wheel.

That’s not just because there’s almost no one on the road at all.

It’s because it was always a mug’s game, and it’s a lot of work for nothing. There’s no guarantee of pay, or cut-through, or even an understanding, beyond how much faith you wish to put into analytics, that you’re talking to anyone but yourself.

It’s demanding. And that demand has to come from within.

You have to be prepared to do it for more than a month. More than a year. More than years.

People try things once, or twice, or for a few weeks, then get bored. The silence that says nothing — literally — but is really there for everyone and almost always, truly throws their game. Almost instantly. And certainly far too soon.

I recognised almost immediately that this post might feel like some weird boast. Talking up my endurance in the face of dwindling readership all across the internet. But that’s not really what I’m saying. And the bonus is, if I am, it’s still really not going to make that much different all up…how many people, really, are reading this and taking any note? I appreciate your readership so hugely by the way. I’m just saying…

No one ever got into this for the money, or attention, or infamy or something someone might one time call fame.

You do it because you love it. And because you cannot imagine not doing it. You do it because it’s the thing you do. And staying up until 2am or getting up at 5am — or sometimes burning the candle so dangerously close to both of those ends — is the only way to get it done. To fit in doin’ the thing.

Thanks for reading. Happy listening. I really do recommend this album. There for you above on Spotify, and at the very top on YouTube.

And more music — of a different kind — down below. Please share any favourite new albums you wish to recommend for the weekend.

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It’s Friday. So here’s the weekend playlist. Enjoy!