New Cities/New Soviets

July 10, 2003

Repetition

Yesterday I was in a kind of funk, thinking: "Why the hell did I ever get into this line of work? Every day I want to go out I have to do everything all over again. If I worked with information, like if I was a writer or a music producer, I could just do it once and be done with it."

But today something Molly said helped me see the other side of the coin. I was telling her about how disappointed I was with the new MF Doom album. "It's got to be hard for guys like that," she said, "I mean, some people can spend every day for nine months working on a song until they know they can't make it any better. But for someone who wants to get the stuff out there and see how people like it, there's no real way to repeat it. There's nothing like there is for you with the cart, where you get to do it again and again until it's just the way you want it."

It made me think about an El-P interview I read, where he said that he "spent a lot of days in a warm bath with a razor blade" in his hand when he was agonizing over his album. It put my anxiety in perspective. I get to go out with my best game, and if it doesn't work for people, I get to try something else tomorrow. It's hard to feel like I'm bringing something good enough, but I get an immediate response and have an immediate remedy. The tough part is not over-reacting, is having the fortitude to stand up and wait for people to tell you what they want. I'm working on it...

Posted by Sam at July 10, 2003 10:49 PM

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