December 11, 2008. I’ve been mailing out copies of Rusty Pile for the last 10 days (over 100 copies to radio stations, reviewers, etc.). I’m not too sure how to proceed with the promotion part of this music project, other than to hope that it will slowly grow on its own accord. Playing concerts would help, at least locally, but that’s not really an option right now.
The only response to this point that I’ve had from someone I don’t know has been a somewhat negative review in Vital Weekly. The text is at the bottom.
I guess there are many ways to approach reviews and one’s approach must develop over time. Once I get past my initial defensiveness, I have to admit that I don’t necessarily disagree with this review (other than its snarky tone — I don’t think the comment about everything getting recycled was really necessary, especially as the reviewer acknowledges not knowing the original band). I agree that the middle two pieces on Rusty Pile do stretch things a bit. Their structure may not be apparent on a first listen. Or maybe they are just not very good pieces of music. However, myself, I like long pieces of music that take time to develop. I like long movies, books, sentences, conversations, ings, car rides, and meals, as well.
Ponderousness is, sadly or not, part of my nature, hence it comes out in the music. Of course it might not be fair to subject that on unsuspecting listeners. There is room for improvement here.
How I react to this review depends a bit on my purpose for doing music … why am I doing music? I believe that WHY? is a struggle between arrogant narcissism on one hand, and seeking that which is pure, divorced from the ego, and which exists entirely for and of itself on the other. In other words, am I doing music to further fatten an already bloated sense of self-worth, or for the stimulation, mystery in the process of creation and discovery itself? Inevitably the answer is somewhere in the middle (though I would prefer the latter), but even reading this review makes the defensive narcissist rear its head … hence a self-fulfilling prophesy.
If I were doing music solely for the pleasure and investigation in the creative process, I could easily ignore, better yet, not read this review. So, my own reaction, no matter how considered, tells me that the ego is far from dissolved.
“Only by excising myself from myself can I learn who I am, and who I am not.”
And this has filled me with doubt about the 2nd CD which (until now) contained 2 long songs, the first of which (track 1) is a 27 minute monstrosity … all I can say is that greater attention to the end product will always give a better result. So there are at least 2 outcomes here: harder work and more honesty in the process.
So, I’m OK with the review: a positive commentary would likely have been more detrimental for me. … we’ll see where this goes.
The Review:
VIOLENCE AND THE SACRED PERFORMING AS VIOSAC- RUSTYPILE (CD by VioSac)
This is what sometimes happens: a name from the past pops up again (everything is eventually recycled), but one totally forgot what it sounded like. Violence & The Sacred is such a name. In 2007 they started again, after a 14-year sleep, although it seems to be reduced to one member only Graham Stewart (I honestly don’t remember if it was an one-man band before) and goes by the name VioSac (the cover says ‘Violence And The Sacred perfoming as VioSac). On the cover there is a list of equipment, ranging from the Korg family to guitars, cello, bass guitar, garage sale LPs and the words of William Shakespeare. All of this captured on analogue tape. As said I can’t remember how the old Violence And The Sacred sounded, perhaps they failed to make an ever-lasting impression, but I’m afraid it happens again. They are at their best in six of the shorter pieces, when things are kept to their bare minimum, with just a few synthesizer sounds, some spoken word and a hand-spun record. There are however also two epic pieces of twenty-three and fifteen minutes, and here things are too widely spun and moves seemingly on end through the same sort of sounds – pretty much all of the above ingredients, but taking so much time to develop – or rather undeveloped. These pieces seem to be the unedited results of a jam session on a few dislocated sounds. If these two pieces would have been cut to also say five or six minutes than I would have thought this was a pretty good CD. Now they stand at the heart of the CD and the result is less positive, because it takes the CD down for me. I am told a new CD is ready the very near future, so let’s hope for some better and more concise ideas. Perhaps it will stick better. (FdW)
Address: http://www.viosec.net
From Vital Weekly number 656 (http://www.vitalweekly.net/656.html)
Its original context is here.
