01 - the long story.
Welcome to… this. I don’t entirely know what ‘‘this” is yet - what I do know is that it’s going to be the place where I put the musical things that I’m working on, and tell you about them in many more words than my marketing degree tells me I should ever put near a social media account. In fact, every ounce of my marketing knowledge is probably writhing in it’s grave at the very sight of this, but I kinda enjoy that fact, so be prepared for me to lean into it a little.
“This” is my one-stop-shop answer to the challenge that is that I’m doing a lot of work over here in musical town, but because none of it is getting released yet, you won’t see it. A lot of it you would never normally see, because I have this nasty habit of not releasing anything into the world till I’m absolutely positive it’s perfect, and sadly I have higher standards in my brain than my reality ever seems to be able to reach. The net result of this sorry state of brain-related affairs is, more often than not, blank, zero, butt-truck nothing - an issue because, in case you hadn’t noticed, one of the key criteria you must meet in order to call yourself a musician is to acTUALly rELEasE sOMe sHIttiNg mUSic.
But, currently I don’t have a band, 90% of my equipment is broken or thinking about breaking - my bank account to fix that issue isss… emptier than a turkey coop at Christmas, I don’t have a solution to the fact that I don’t really love the idea of being a solo artist and really if I was what the bloody hell do you call yourself when your name is Chris Brown anyway, (“use your middle name” I hear you cry - oh yeah, Iain - Iain Brown, that’s 100% solved everything, great - thank you) and I’d like to maybe go into production or be a session musician if all else fails, but both of those are gunna be slow, slow burners. Realistically, all of this is.
…and that leads to the solution you find before you. We’re gunna have to post some imperfect stuff. Some work-in-progress, ideas, snippets - until such time as we work some of this all out. Because, as a wiser version of myself once said, sometimes done is better than perfect.
If I was trying to do the marketing right now I’d probably tell you I was taking you on “my musical journey,” which, whilst not wrong, is an extremely over-egged way of saying that frankly I’m confused as to what this plan is, but I want to give you things to listen to in the meantime. I’m aware the world of social media and marketing is moving towards content which is more personal, human and genuine rather than “manufactured,” which means that statistically speaking, you should absolutely dig this shit. I’m not trying to do any of that however. This is imperfect because it’s not finished, it’s imperfect because it’s in progress, and it’s imperfect because I deliberately want to make myself go through the discipline of posting it knowing it’s not perfect, and also because if I want to give you anything to listen to any time soon, I kind of don’t have a choice.
So here “this” is. It’s been a long time coming, because to be quite honest I couldn’t think of a name for it, and then I realised that not doing it because I didn’t have a name for it was part of the entire problem, it didn’t matter what it was called, what mattered was that I made it. Then I realised that justcallitanything.com was 99p, so now it’s called that. Over time it may morph into lots of things, but in the meantime I’m just going to use it to tell you about what happens in the zone of musical merriment (and often struggle) that is my bedroom - in which there is very much more real-estate afforded to musical equipment than quite literally anything else.
I will say this now and only once - Yes, there will be dodgy vocals, some things may not be perfectly timed, you might be listening to a 30 second loop with nothing either side and you might hear the same verse repeated more than once because I haven’t written the other words yet. Oh, and my guitar is a buzzy little shit, I’m working on it. Trust me, if you’ve noticed it, I promise you that it grates on me more than you could ever know. But it will be there, and if you would like to listen to it, contribute to it, give feedback on it or generally engage with it in any other way I will be eternally grateful.
In the meantime, I’m looking for musical opportunities wherever and whatever they may be. There isn’t a plan yet which means anything goes and if you have something you’d like a Chris-shaped pair of hands with I am so there - finance permitting (it’s not very permitting).
That’s probably everything - maybe I’ll add to this later if I realise I forgot something drastic. In the meantime, I’ve put a couple of things onto the SoundCloud from the depths of my hard drive for your listening joy (more, newer stuff to follow), lists of what I’m currently working on (on the page clearly named “stuff”) and what I’ve done before (“things”) just to get us going.
Done. If you got this far - thanks, you’re the best.
CB x