Come gather around the tribal fire and listen to the story teller, dance to the rhythms and be transported to the world that exists as bookends to this 'elementally physical' one. The role of the shaman, the witch doctor, the gospel priest is to gather us and unpack us in a community place so that we can release and engage with the spirit - soul - energy - id - of what it is to be alive and mortal. We are born and we will die on our own as individuals, but in-between we collide and stick and come apart and fight and love each other. We desperately try and work out who we are and how we fit into existence by sharing our hopes - dreams - thoughts - fears - of what it is to be alive.
Artists also play the role of the shaman - the witch-doctor and the priest, they explore the high mountains and the dark caves of being alive the pure and the plastic of people. They digest experience and they ruminate and they expel ideas in image and sound. These images and sounds can arrest us - transfix us and transport us. They can connect us. They can unite us.
So who pays the piper?
If we want the artist to be true and to tell us what they have found in the high places and dark caves, we must value the time and energy and material cost to their artistic production.
In other words, and I hope I'm not sounding to radical here, we must pay them for the art they produce.
If a recording artist has made a piece of music for £x then that is what we pay to have that piece of music.
This is not a new concept it is "not stealing" an old fashioned idea maybe but one that I think works.
I too have 'borrowed' cd's, but I too have bought them after I have decided this is something I like and want to add to my collection.
Music matters which means so does the artist who made it.
Please support all artists buy encouraging everyone to honour the fact that they spent time and money on producing the artifact and should be paid accordingly.
Please enjoy Gillian Welch who says it so brilliantly and poignantly below.
Please visit the music matters website.
Please honour the music you love.
Everything is free now,
That's what they say.
Everything I ever done,
Gotta give it away.
Someone hit the big score.
They figured it out,
That we're gonna do it anyway,
Even if doesn't pay.
I can get a tip jar,
Gas up the car,
And try to make a little change
Down at the bar.
Or I can get a straight job,
I've done it before.
I never minded working hard,
It's who I'm working for.
(Chorus)
Every day I wake up,
Hummin' a song.
But I don't need to run around,
I just stay home.
And sing a little love song,
My love, to myself.
If there's something that you want to hear,
You can sing it yourself.
'Cause everything is free now,
That what I say.
No one's got to listen to
The words in my head.
Someone hit the big score,
And I figured it out,
That we're gonna do it anyway,
Even if doesn't pay.
That's what they say.
Everything I ever done,
Gotta give it away.
Someone hit the big score.
They figured it out,
That we're gonna do it anyway,
Even if doesn't pay.
I can get a tip jar,
Gas up the car,
And try to make a little change
Down at the bar.
Or I can get a straight job,
I've done it before.
I never minded working hard,
It's who I'm working for.
(Chorus)
Every day I wake up,
Hummin' a song.
But I don't need to run around,
I just stay home.
And sing a little love song,
My love, to myself.
If there's something that you want to hear,
You can sing it yourself.
'Cause everything is free now,
That what I say.
No one's got to listen to
The words in my head.
Someone hit the big score,
And I figured it out,
That we're gonna do it anyway,
Even if doesn't pay.
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