Chris Preston and New Aquarius Online

Well, at least if you’re a musician engaged in self-promotion. I’ve come to believe that the philosophy of the “artist as open book” is terribly flawed. If you pollute your mind with the prevalent electronic chatter about the new music business made possible by “direct-to-fan” solutions, social networking and all that rot, you might be led to believe that using technology to get as close to your “fans” (what an awful word) as possible is the goal. Though I use these tools in the promotion of my music and recordings, I’ve been thinking about how it can blow up in your face too.

Two bands I’ve written about here, Led Zeppelin and Kiss, would have ruined their careers by becoming too intimate with their audiences. Yes, perhaps things are different now, but what would these two bands have been if the lives of their members had been documented in a readily accessible resource by the members themselves?

In the mythology of Led Zeppelin, you had deals with the devil, obscure symbols to represent the members of the group, drugs, disasters, groupies, and music that was, according to a documentary I saw about them, “Howlin’ Wolf meets the Loch Ness Monster.” I don’t believe a single one of these particular entrapments was ever addressed directly by the group. I don’t think they ever published an informal piece to “set the record straight.” The audience was left to imagine just about anything. The myth grew and grew. It was anything you wanted it to be, except like you. There were no limits to what you could discover in Led Zeppelin. It could not end because it wasn’t real in the first place. Opening the book would have blown it all to hell.

Even Led Zeppelin album cover art kept the band at a distance. They seemed to live on a planet designed just for them, a mystical place that featured monuments to gods whose names you dared not speak and rolling green Celtic geography that was literally hell and gone from Main Street USA or Times Square. They managed to perpetuate an image of dark magic, without saying a word about it.

If it existed, what could Jimmy Page’s blog have said that wouldn’t have ruined everything?

“Had a costume fitting today. I hope they get the dragon right this time. I like dragons.”

“I took a plane to Los Angeles after the show to meet this 13-year-old model I’m just mad about. I know what it looks like, but she’s just incredible.”

“I want to thank all you guys for coming out to the show tonight. Percy, Bonzo, Jonsey and I had a blast. We can’t wait to come back to Pittsburgh.”

“I’m thinking Peter needs to lose a few pounds. I’m worried about him.”

“I’ve got such a headache today. I must send Coco out for some more aspirin before we leave for soundcheck.”

“Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while. I’ve been soooooo busy with the new album. We can’t think of a good title for it though. I want to use freaky drawings and a tarot card for the cover, but Jonesy thinks it’s a stupid idea. Maybe it could be a contest! Leave your suggestions for the name of our fourth album in the comments. If we use your title, we’ll send you a signed copy a week before it’s released to radio!”

“I can’t stop thinking about burgers! Damn this heroin!”

I’m pretty good with the language, but I can’t think of an appropriate superlative to describe the lameness that would have ensued. Good Christ, Jimmy Page wasn’t human like us! He didn’t eat breakfast or get up for school or go to the dentist. He just made otherworldly sounds with guitars and laser beams went off behind him in all directions when he did it! A blog would have ruined him. A superstar must be a mystery. Maybe that’s why we have so few of them now.

Kiss might have blogged in character, which could have worked, but judging by those fake letters in Kiss Alive, the blogs probably would have been written by someone in the Glickman/Marks office and sucked.

Insert palaver about being rich and famous, hyper-sexual, demonic, from another planet, and something about cats and junk here.

It was so much better to wonder who they were under the makeup. Were they murderers? Was Satan involved? Was the drummer really rescued from death by a panther? Again, the mystery of Kiss made it work. Gene Simmons has stated since the 90s that Kiss were trying be the heavy metal Beatles. They never said it in the 70s though. On planet Kiss, the Beatles did not exist. Get it?

Kiss was best served by others writing about them (provided they could nudge the writers in the right direction). Every time Gene was pressed to explain the meaning of the fire and blood tricks, he could never make sense of it, even when he was in character. A personal blog would have muddied the waters even more. Without the distance, Kiss could never have been superheroes.

So, since I’m at least as interesting as Jimmy Page and Gene Simmons, I have to be careful when I blog. I could ruin everything. It’s a good thing that I do this telepathically. And since I’m getting off of all those pills it’s going so much faster now. Thanks to Satan and his hounds, Myra and Otis, I’m well protected here. I can almost see Earth, though these lasers cast quite a shadow across the great billows of rainbow smoke that surround the palace when I awaken. Regardless, at all times, music flows from me as breath, surrounding you with love.

Over the last last year, I’ve posted articles here fairly consistently. I think I heard it said once that it takes 6-10 repetitions of a particular activity for it to become a habit. Or was that how often you have to give a child a new food before she takes a liking to it? Can’t remember. Regardless of the statistical support, I’ve made my blog a habit. When Tuesday or Friday rolls around and I don’t have something new up here, I feel that I have an unsatisfied responsibility hanging over my head.

I’ve received some surprising comments on my posts this year. I’ve mentioned the Bacon Brothers, CD Baby and Nimbit, the company I use to distribute my music, and in all three instances, I’ve received responses from those parties in fairly short order. Am I so widely read that my words ripple across the Internet like seismic aftershocks? No. I think those responses have probably shown up on my site because Google Alerts actually work.

Google Alerts work a little like feed subscriptions for a blog or a podcast. However, instead of using Google to interrogate the feed files you’ve subscribed to for the presence of new content, you set up an alert that gives you a link every time your search phrase appears somewhere. Marketing people use alerts all the time to monitor the online image of their products and services. I gather that’s why I can write about the Bacon Brothers and Michael Bacon knows about it. Chances are he’ll get a link to this piece too.

On a lark, I tried to set up a couple of alerts myself. One for New Aquarius, my creative umbrella moniker, and one for Chris Preston. All I seemed to get were links to my own blog posts, to the sites of people selling fish and aquarium supplies and to news stories about footballers in the UK who have the audacity to share my name. Oh well, so much for my effect on pop culture. :~)

The reason I say that alerts are cool, kinda, is that they do get more people to know about my blog. However, when they draw readers who primarily are interested in what I’ve written about them, they have tended to stir things up unpredictably. Michael Bacon seemed pretty upset. Kevin at CD Baby offered to help me personally, which looked good, but in following up with him, I didn’t get very far. (I’ve finally been able to transition the bulk of my distribution to Nimbit.)

I thought my Nimbit interaction here was cool, but then I found out this week that unbeknownst to me, they chopped the photo from my site into a headshot, took quotes from my blog and added me to the “Customers Rave About Nimbit” section of their Press page. They liked my quote, and I appreciated that, but I found being an unwitting endorser on the Nimbit site a little unsettling. I can’t even say why. It just felt odd. Not my style, I guess. They apologized for not having cleared the use of my likeness and words and took me off the page.

Nevertheless, I’ve learned some valuable lessons though blogging. The first and probably most important one is that regardless of the seemingly wild west and infinite nature of the Internet, you never know who’s listening. Another is that if you write more, you seem to swing a heavier ax. I have to admit that I find that encouraging, since I have this blogging habit pretty well established. The last is that interactions with all the people who read my blog are authentic ones. They are not as faceless and impersonal as I originally imagined they’d be. It’s great when someone takes the time to read about what I’m thinking or experiencing. It’s even better when they take the time to comment and validate what I’ve written. Thanks everyone!

If you spend enough time in your own head, like creative people do, it’s very easy to start thinking that everyone is just like you. It’s something that I constantly have to remind myself. Take this blog for example. I write entries that are relevant to my life at the moment and hopefully what I’ve written resonates with someone and affects them positively, but I have absolutely no way of knowing what will click.

I think a lot about what I write here, and how to stay visible with my musical endeavors. It’s important to me that I share what I’m up to, because making records and performing original music requires someone to actually listen to what you do. Because I use blogging to spread my message, I subscribe to a number of blogs that interest me too. They pertain to music, marketing and self-improvement, among other things. It’s a daily thing for me to peruse my subscriptions to see what’s happening.

As many times as I ask my friends if they saw that blog post I wrote about a certain subject, some of them just never catch on to the idea of subscribing to a blog. They don’t know about feeds or aggregators. They go to sites they read regularly, but never think of collecting all of the information they want in one place. (At present, I use iGoogle. I’m looking for something that I like better though.) I couldn’t manage all of this information without some sort of aggregator. But some people just aren’t like me.

The same goes for what they call “social media” like Facebook and Twitter. They are useful for staying visible too, though I really enjoy blogging the best. I enjoy developing an idea a bit more. This guy Gary Vaynerchuk, who is sort of a social media marketing guru posted this the other day: http://garyvaynerchuk.com/post/94654638/how-do-you-cut-through-the-noise-everyone-is

The title set off an alarm for me because it seemed to make that assumption I’m talking about. Everyone is using social media? Everyone? His message in the video is valid for people like me and others who are interested in staying visible, but my immediate reaction showed that my wiring was already in place. “Hold on a minute! Not everyone uses social media.” Granted, his blog and videos are for a specific audience, about which he wasn’t wrong, but I was glad to know that I’ve programmed myself to be on the lookout.

It’s great when people are like you, but many times, they aren’t. It’s important to be sensitive to both conditions.