Video - An Interesting Life

Just a little something I bunged together while I was watching TV last night; an amazingly high-budget filmclip/slideshow for my song “An Interesting Life” which I wrote in 2009 and recorded in July 2010. (See below video for notes.)

The scene at the start on the train and all of the photos were taken, on a small, lo-fi digital camera in mid-2007 in France, mostly in Paris and on a visit to the Palace of Versailles. I got pretty bored of taking shots of monuments and crap like that so I started taking covert snaps of people minding their own business.

Although the song, with its reference to the Scarab Bar (a perfectly wonderful late-night watering establishment on Main St) is “set” in and around Belgrave, Victoria (as much as any song is set in a location, which is not much), I thought the pensiveness of the images suited the song with its themes of regret and remorse. And anyway, they were all I had besides happy snaps of the family dog or whatever Enjoy! And be sure to watch through ’till the end for a cameo appearance by the incredible speeding Snowflake Man himself!!

Enjoy this post? Then please return the favour by checking out my music - click here -> Seamus’ Music

New band - Zuiiza

Yes that’s right - the new band is called Zuiiza - an odd name for a bunch of odd fellows.

Zuiiza is a totally obscure Japanese Zen word I found which means to be off duty (literally: to sit as one pleases) except we decided to pronounce it differently than you are supposed to. It’s apparently really pronounced “zoo-ee-zah” but we say it “Zoo-zah” and we keep making up various fictitious definitions for it, so in short, it’s pretty much a made up word

Click here to check out Zuiiza and have a listen to some work-in-progress music.

Glass and Blood and Leaves

Never Tell People What You Are Planning

That’s the advice I read from Derek Sivers and I reckon he is one guy who ears should flap enthusiastically towards, so I have left a post I got ready for Seamus.TV unposted, and made a different video instead.

The unposted vid was about all of my plans, and as I mentioned in the last post here, it was a kind of “this is who I am, take it or leave it” thing to all my nearest and dearest.

But it was wickety-wack; Those closest to me know I am a “lone nut” and they only wish me well. I reckon they would just prefer to let me do my thing and I shouldn’t worry so much about what others think.

So I am just forging ahead. I am loving the idea of making music and video blogging about the process and co-creating a source of inspiration for all musicians who may feel frustrated, burnt out or hard done by, for those musicians who think they are too fat, too old, too ugly, too shy, too lazy, too un-hip, or too remote. Every time I bring these kinds of feelings and issues up with musicians anywhere, they all latch on to it enthusiastically. I think a lot of musicians feel the same (that it all isn’t working out for them) and I think we all need to address what “it” is and turn it around. So that’s my mission, to do this for myself (well I already am) and to inspire other musicians to do the same.

Oh wait! There I go - announcing plans again! Sorry Derek, I’ll shut up and get on with it!

So here is the latest episode:

Seamus.TV – A Musician’s Guide to Giving it a Red Hot Go

To “give something a red hot go” is Aussie slang for giving something a try, for having a shot at doing something.

It’s  not about me preaching about “how to be a rock star”, that would be not be keeping it real – that would just be silly.

Rather, it’s a diary of me getting my music out there and generally raving on like a loony hopefully inspiring you to do the same.

So I’ll be making great music, having fun promoting the music (on and offline), and trying my damnedest to find a  bigger audience to dig my musical vibe-ola.

Yes, I still REALLY need to get a better camera. Yes, I have a LOT to learn yet about video blogging. No, I don’t think it’s better to wait until all the ducks are lined up: Real artists ship. Check it out:

Seamus.TV – A Musician’s Guide to Giving it a Red Hot Go

If you like it, please subscribe to it, or connect with me via Facebook or Twitter and let me know what you think. That would mean the world to me.

Ok I gotta go, I got a gig tonight.

2nd video blog episode

Below you will find the second episode in my new video blog experiment.

If the experiment works, and I continue to publish this, I may put it on it’s own domain and find a better name for it, but for now this is all about getting the ball rolling. It’s not about preaching how-to do things that I have no right to teach - it’s about taking people with me on my journey as a musician, and joining others on their musical journeys. I want to connect with all the people out there who (like me) sometimes let their enjoyment of being a musician suffer for various reasons (mainly Fear aka The Lizard Brain) but who (like me) MUST keep making music all their lives no matter what.

I have been working on this for a few days and to be honest it has been really hard to hit publish because my Lizard Brain is resisting like crazy. It is saying:

“Aaagh! Don’t do this - everyone will laugh at you!” (Well maybe they will laugh, more likely “they” won’t even notice.)

“You can’t publish this - the video and sound quality is terrible!” (Yes the quality is a very much on the lo-fi side but I am publishing anyway. If I stick at this video blogging lark I will get a better camera.)

First Seamus Video Blog Post

I have been wanting to do this for ages, but my Lizard Brain kept feeding me reasons why I should hold off till later.

Until today when I said “Screw it, let’s do it”.

This first post, completely spontaneous and unscripted, is a ramble touching on what this blog is about and where I see it going - essentially what it means to be a musician, how to get satisfaction as a musician (as I reckon 99% of us are frustrated) and ways to differentiate ourselves as musicians. I don’t actually answer these questions yet - but feel free to start up the convo!

I recorded the above video on my iPhone, same goes for this song below called “Never Gonna Be A DJ”:

Depth and Focus

Just reading an awesome free E-book called “What Matters Now“, compiled by Seth Godin; love this quote:

what produces real work (and happiness for each of us,
in my opinion) is depth, focus, concentration and
commitment over time.

By one Steven Pressfield.

It’s not a very trendy thing to say but it is the truth. It’s why I don’t seem to use that Twitter account I briefly flirted with. It’s why I will pursue my music until my pursuing days are over.

Speaking of which, two advancements today in that area:

1. An awesome new vision (virtually worthless until realised of course)
2. A new iPhone sketch, and right on-message too:

An Interesting Life

New song flavoured with a genuine hangover, some minor stuff-ups and a hint of lawnmower in the background. The Scarab Bar is in Belgrave, Victoria but it could be any bar anywhere right?

If you like ze tune zen please download and/or use the share function to ping it around the world, around the world, around the world, around the world (repeat).

Are You Too Old To Be A Musician?

The answer is “no”.

You are never too old to be a musician.

Maybe you’re too old to be a pop star for the teenage market - but do you really want to be that?

Just make your music dude, and don’t worry about how old you are. Age is meaningless.

In Defiance of the Lizard Brain

I was sitting in my little office in the backyard at about 4:30pm yesterday thinking about wanting to record and that little chicken voice, the one Seth Godin calls the Lizard Brain, was giving me the usual crap:

but you need money; make money then you can relax and make music.

Suddenly I just took on board Godin’s whole message from “Linchpin” (brilliant book, read it). I reached for my iPhone, pressed a button and recorded this:

… and by the time I went to bed I had figured out how to convert the file into something usable and it was online and available worldwide.

OK so it took me about 10 minutes to make the cover, and it’s pretty lame - but I can come back and fix that later.

OK so it’s recorded in one take on a Dictaphone. OK so it’s technically sub-standard - but you know what? I don’t mind.

Listening back to it, I like the way it sounds; it reminds me of a Neil Young song recorded around a campfire back in the 70s. I even like the 20 seconds of nothing at the end (the world needs more quiet moments of nothing between stimuli). Polished recordings have their place but so do quick n’ dirty guerrilla recordings. And meanwhile, the lyrics are exactly perfect for the statement: it’s about contributing - now, while you have the chance - not passively consuming.

OK so just because it is available worldwide doesn’t mean the world cares, but that’s not the point.

The point is more people are going to care than if I don’t record it and, just as importantly, release it (Godin calls it “shipping”). Don’t record and release - move nobody. Record and release (however flawed) - move somebody, somewhere for sure. And as an artist, all I really care about is moving people with my art, making a difference.

So bugger off Lizard Brain, get thee to a nunnery and I’ll call you when I actually need you.

I’m going to record and release a whole album like this over the next week or two; the working title is “Recorded on my iPhone (in defiance of the Lizard Brain)’.

Thank you Seth, you moved me with your indispensable book.

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