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I tired drumming for the first time yesterday, it went very well...
May I heartily recommend the Kaiser Chiefs for drumming practise, especially 'I was born to be a Dancer' :-)
The City Library Street Press group is a free and weekly workshop held at Melbourne's City Library for all of those interested in creating their own zines, blogs, comics and all other aspects of Street Press. The first round of workshops hosted a plethora of interesting guests, judged a High Schools Zine competition and took control of the Library's Zine collection, and now we're recommencing indefinitely on Wednesday, 6 - 7.45pm...
Hope to see you there!
City Library, 253 Flinders Lane, Melbourne...
I get to this stage with writing my personal thoughts quite frequently, I aim to put ideas to ‘paper’ on a regular basis so they don’t clutter and cloud my mind, but generally circumstances get the better of me. I don’t find the time to put thoughts down and I either end up writing long rambling pieces or inane articles of self promotion, this will be a little of both worlds. Work has been going exceptionally well, not only is it finally regular and reliable, it’s also generally in areas I enjoy and am interested in. It’s funny, when I returned from the UK I was dead set on gaining full time employment, but no one seemed to want to employ me and rather unexpectedly I fell into a non-ceasing flurry of freelance work. I also now work two days a week at a ‘Technology for Social Justice’ charity and one day a week doing the website for a local environmental park. I have been so busy it’s been hard to keep my thoughts straight, this year I decided it was time to start focussing less on pursuing music and time to try and move into success in other more rewarding fields and without even planning it, that’s exactly what’s happened and despite it feeling as everything familiar is crashing around me it feels great to be finally properly busy.
Projects I’ve been involved with recently have all being going pretty well, the City Library Street Press Workshops ran for eight weeks on full capacity with the group asked to judge a High Schools zine project and take over the curating of the City Library’s zine collection once we recommence indefinitely in a week. I recently wrote an article on Cycling in Melbourne for Aduki Magazine (www.aduki.net.au) which should be out sometime this week, I’m having a poem published in Velveteen (velveteenzine.wordpress.com), I recorded a radio play which will be finished soon, Cate and I started a blog on living an environmental existence in rental property (greenrenters.blogspot.com) and I’m working on many other bits and pieces here and there.
I have been renewing my involvement in Cultural and Political scenes, moving further and further away from the music scene that is so familiar and easy for me, which leads nicely to my next thought. I was sad and disappointed that Maraca Mulatta split just after finally recording a debut album, but I admit that a lot of the songs didn’t feel appropriate anymore and I never quite managed to have the ‘gang’ feeling I always sought. Over the past month I played a few solo shows and I think they finally sealed the door on me pursuing music as a ‘career’. I’d grown perfectly used to not making money out of my newer material and the seeming lack of interest in it, but was resolute in my own self belief in the material. However after the last few shows I didn’t even believe that anymore, I felt as if I was just going through the motions, it felt shallow and hollow, this cemented in my mind that it was time for my current musical paths to come to an end. If I have any involvement with music in the future in will be purely for my own enjoyment, investigation and experimentation. This also extends to my music writing, I am still writing the occasional article, but to be perfectly honest after ten years nothing is really exciting me anymore, there’s nothing more to say and I’m a little tired of the music scenes I’ve been moving in generally.
So for all intensive purposes (and for the time being at least) Chris Chinchilla is closing the door on the music ‘business’.
But do I care? Am I sad? Not particularly, so far I haven’t missed it at all, now I have truly given up that ridiculous dream of chasing a career with the musical mistress I am finally a lot happier and more relaxed (and financially better off!), the fact that I am now succeeding in new fields is an added bonus. The Chinchilla is chewing the curd in new pastures and loving the taste, watch this space…
Comments
Well, I'm sorry that those initial dreams didn't work out the way you wanted. But you seem happy, so what's there to be sorry about? good luck on future endeavors!
Chris - the business of music is definitely hurting, always has been - it's tough out there, and the main reason that I left the business a long time ago - however, still writing (more indie soundtrack stuff now) and just for the love of it. Stay with music whatever you do - I for one, will still be listening. Cheers!
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I'm a bass player, but I've always harbored a secret desire to be a drummer. I'll have to try that one.
(PS: I find that playing the drums in "Rock Band" is great for helping me live out these drumming fantasies).
drummers rule! took drum lessons a few years back. i liked them much much more than piano and guitar lessons.
Rock on Brother. I have never formally taken lessons on the drums, but have played on various records... order of instrument proficiency for me is piano, voice, guitar, bass, trumpet, saxophone, and then the drums... although I've considered taking formal lessons in drumming. Piano is my main instrument, by far and away, having started lessons at the age of 4.
I like to approach writing from different instruments - starting with only a vocal line, or how different the approach can be when starting on the guitar, say, vs. the piano. Cheers!