It happens to us all at some point in our lives. A point where we’ve overextended ourselves. Bitten off more than we can chew. For me it happened yesterday. I had a full day before it had begun. Then came a frantic message from my sister needing help. Of course being the brother I took a moment to look into her problem to see about a solution. It ended up taking a whole lot of additional time. Which started pushing back other things I was already planning to do.
Remember a few days back – the whole New Years thing – where I was discussing working on balancing work and non-work life (being human). Well, there’s two projects I’m working on for music that I should had some things done for for today. However, they haven’t been finished yet. There’s a third thing that I was hoping to have finished today, that likely won’t get done now due to time spent elsewhere yesterday. This bummed out the person I was doing something for. Especially when he contacted me at 11:30 p.m. to ask if I was going to work on it last night.
I said no. That I needed to have time to myself. That is my goal this year, time to be me without the work. To go do stuff with friends. In fact, I had to skip going to do something with a friend yesterday around 5 p.m. because I was still attempting to catch up at that point with things for the day. But by 8:30 p.m. I had to force myself to stop. How many times do you find yourself working from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. or later? Leave it to a driven musician to do it a lot.
I don’t want to be bitting the hand that feeds, but essentially I had to put a foot down and say I’d miss my own imposed finish date. It happens. Which where I come to Nine Inch Nails for today’s first Future Friday. If there is an artist that has attempted to figure out the concept of selling music in the digital age in a more public manner, I’m not sure I know who it would be. Trent, the mastermind behind Nine Inch Nails has been a pioneer in a lot of things. It’s not an easy road to blaze in music. Believe me, I know.
I have a whole lot of his music because I think he’s extremely creative. I’m probably one of those nutty dudes that pays for it too. I think he’s worth it. I will say to hear him complain that people won’t buy everything he does is a little off. An artist can’t expect to have a fan buy every single thing they do. I will say that it’s comments like that that probably help to lead to more sales though. Why? Because many people will often spend more time listening to stuff they hate than they will listen to stuff the love. I’m not really one of them.
However, due to this little slice of the web you’re reading now, I do have to slog thru a lot of music that I don’t like. The bonus is I can turn it off in seconds and move on. I don’t force myself thru something I don’t like.
What is it that I dig about The Hand That Feeds? Let’s start with the intro. That filtered version of the mix with the static, where you get a low volume snippet and can hear an additional synth in there. He’s a master of directing his people to put lots of ear candy into a song. It works. Then the mix slowly kicks in and boom you’ve got a bit of a disco era beat under a pumping rhythm of bass and guitars going in a circular motion of notes. It’s the kind of beat that gets your foot tapping, your head moving back and forth. It’s infectious.
Lyrically it’s about being a slave to your job, your money, your life, whatever it is that provides you with your desire to please someone or something to remain happy. And what happens? You become a servant.
Some of us are more public about who we serve. Who do you serve?
Dig it? Get it legally. It’ll make you happy, it’ll make Trent happy, and it’ll make me happy. Be happy!