SO, as you may or may not be aware, I have, for the last ten years or so, been releasing music under the auspices of a nonexistent band called The Levon Sobieski Domination. We have twelve albums. Twelve! Here’s one of their recent songs:
Here’s the new album:
This all started because The Duchess, my sainted wife, got tire of my Middle Aged White Man moaning about how I always wanted to learn how to play guitar, so she bought me a guitar and some lessons and told me to do something about it. Which she now regrets, because I often make her listen to my songs and I can always pinpoint the moment when her soul leaves her body.
But I digress: For me the creative process in any medium is all about an audience. If you write a novel and no one reads it, did you write a novel? Or did you spend a few months pretending? I never had any interest in learning classic songs or campfire sing-a-long guitar stuff; I’m not the guy who shows up to our party with his guitar and everyone gathers around expectantly as I launch into Wonderwall. I’m the guy who shows up to your party with a $4 bottle of wine and proceed to drink all of your top-shelf liquor and falls asleep in your bathtub.
So I started composing my own songs. I’ve composed 1,451 of them so far, each 2-4 minute little instrumental rock tunes. And since the whole point is to find an audience, I invented a band and started releasing songs like this one:
I can’t just create this aggressively mediocre songs and not release them, because I compulsively need an audience. There’s just no point to creating something if you can’t at least have the possibility that someone will experience it someday.
All of these songs are 100% written and performed by me (the drums are programmed) and recorded, if we use the term loosely, while sitting at my desk surrounded by cats. If no one ever listens to them (which, so far, seems like a safe bet) at least in theory someone could, and that’s enough to drive me to keep doing this. Just in case you were putting together a committee to beg me to stop, for the good of the country.
Huzzah!