90 Seconds

One of the most difficult things about being an unpaid producer is the balance between life, work, and music. When music is more than a hobby but less than a job it sits in a part of life where things can often collect dust. It doesn’t take much to derail me from making new music, or *gasp* working on old stuff. Something as simple as a computer problem can keep me away for months. And the worst part is that even after the problem is fixed it takes a long time to get back to a place where music takes a high priority because usually in the interim something else has taken its spot, and now the two are in competition. I suppose the point of this is that the time adds up, and projects like 90 Seconds can take actual decades in the making. That can be a bit disconcerting if you are an instant gratification junkie, or need regular accolades and feedback. We literally have hundreds of songs, most of which have never been heard outside of Carolyn and myself. I wonder if other bands are the same way. If so there could be potentially thousands of unheard songs by groups I love just sitting out there collecting dust in some hard drive. Sometimes you see artists release collections of b-sides and alternate takes along with the unpublished tracks that didn’t make the cut. Sometimes this kind of stuff has to be released posthumously, like that new Michael Jackson track “This Is It,” or all that old 2Pac stuff. Sometimes an artist will release their stuff as a side-project instead of trying to fit it into an already existing identity. The members of Tortoise all have interesting side-projects like that. Isotope 217 and Brokeback are both very good in their own right. Sometimes the side project becomes bigger than the original group like how Richard Dorfmeister has released more albums as Tosca than he did with Kruder & Dorfmeister. I suppose all artists need to find the sufficient motivation to get past the inertia of life. We are no different.