Is T3 a failed experiment?
Was it really worth it? Does it
continue to hold its own?
This time around it’s really much
harder to compare to where we are in progress.
Before we made the first album it was all new and exciting and writing
new songs was progress all on its own.
At 3 songs in I think we had Black Rob, Mystery Box, and I dunno, Jimmy
maybe? They all blurred together and
didn’t really come together that well till much later. But there was nothing before this, so the
idea of an album was there, but not in the realm of reality yet. After that we for some reason had a real hard
time getting around to writing new tunes and I don’t know why. We did Unemployed and Momma’s Boy pretty
quick, but then seemingly stopped and just focused on the live show. Little bits and pieces of other things and
rather than banking them for another album I was eager to release something if
anything, resulting in the Feel Good EP.
Maybe it was because time was not on our side as I was about to head
back to school I dunno.
Things were slow the next year at
first as well. We had the framework for
Fowl Play 4 months before we officially wrote it out and then sat on things for
a bit longer. Some time that fall things
started to fall into place when we wrote Bovine Revolution. It wasn’t until soon after that I got my
heart back into writing again and willing to go that far into new songs. Previously I was ready to call it a day and
walk away from the project satisfied with what we had accomplished as I went on
to other things in life. Instead, ideas
started to come to me and lots of inspiration was well under way. I guess a lot of it stemmed from not wanting
to be left with nothing to do while I sat around and looked for a crap job to
start paying back my student loans.
However, the more I poured into it and made the decision to not book
shows, just write, proved fruitful as quickly we had Bovine, D.T.A, and Teef
written and performed within a few months.
As I browsed around at my hard drive a few weeks ago, I honestly
remember things differently, but apparently we also started playing Like Like
Letters and The Leafy Illusion as early as December of 2010 when we didn’t
actually sit down with them until later the next spring. That’s pretty rare for us to pick something
back up that we leave behind sadly. So
many in my opinion good songs have been left behind that way. But when we do pick them up we end up with
songs like Unemployed, Fowl Play, Aguas, and Derek’s Friend. Kinda hard to
imagine the T3 catalog without those if you ask me.
So it was a hard hitting writing
near year and I was ok with that. We
played a few shows here and there, but didn’t do much or enough when we got
most of them written and eventually released the album. And we don’t really play shows now either for
a variety of reasons, so now it feels like that whole time making that album
was a waste of time if only for the therapeutic value and feeling of
accomplishment of not only doing it again, but feeling like it was a superior
album to the original. At least I feel
it is anyway, some people disagree with me and enjoy Your Music Is Bad better,
but whatever, to each their own. Flash
forward to now and we’re teetering on finishing up 3 songs right now: Hard
Times for the Hamburglar, Like Butter, and Space Adventure. 3 very different sounding songs from what we’ve
done in the past and very catchy and bouncy.
I really like them, but my question is if anyone will ever hear them or
we’ll ever get a chance to do anything with them. If I remember correctly none
of these songs existed before at least January of this year and considering how
infrequently we practice now and only for 2, maybe 3 hours at most a week when
we do, they seem to have turned out pretty well. I try not to compare writing periods in terms
of time however or at least I don’t want to. In these 10ish months that we’ve
kind of sort of been writing we have 3 with ideas for a few more. For the last album we had the album
completely written and recorded in that time.
For the first album we had at least half or more written and that was
with periods of time where we had no guitarist.
That’s not to say we’re doing a
piss poor job either, because how we write now is honestly far different than
in the past and we’re getting more and more involved and in-depth than ever
before. It just begs the question if it’s
worth it. I love making music and I love
working with these guys to do so. It’s
my outlet and what has been one of the few things keeping me sane since its
incarnation over five years ago, but
there are days when I wonder if it’s worth it anymore or if it’s past time to
let it go. This question always creeps
up after a particularly negative experience in band related terms, usually a consistent
amount of not practicing or something, but it is something I’ve been thinking
about for a number of months now as I see everyone’s life’s shifting around and
becoming more involved, more permanent as I like to put it. More settled.
Something I know that I’m not and won’t be for a long while, if
ever. I’m not talking about
relationshippy, but just an overall thing.
I don’t picture myself in my same position in life for the rest of my life,
no way. But at the same time I can’t
picture what I would rather be doing either.
It’s just sort of blank. Maybe that’s
ok, but at the same time it makes it hard to continue to want to share a dream
with people who don’t share the same thing anymore and are making other dreams
a reality and this a minor priority if one at all.
These
are the things I think about when I lay awake at night after a crappy day I
suppose. I have ambitions of continuing
making my own music with the mentality of if you want something done then do it
yourself. Sadly I get frustrated at
myself and my inability to not execute the full picture as I can with a group
of other people. I have the idea, but
lack the talent to pull them off on different instruments or the limitations of
my own voice. When I feel particularly
inspired however I find loopholes, like the drum machine program I purchased
awhile back, but then again its not the same thereputic feeling when doing T3
tunes. Probably because its not a bunch
of goofball weirdo music, but things I actually feel passionate about and come
right around and say them instead of burying them underneath weird topics and
faces. Maybe that’s why I don’t do much
of my own music and just keep it on paper and in my head, its too scary to put
out there. Because that’s not for other
people, its for me. Its not to make people dance and have a good time, it’s the
selfish I want to express this, I want to say this by and for me. I’m sure I’ll get around to it eventually,
but will probably just shelf it and feel good knowing that I did it for me.
Whatever
the case may be, its still of worth to me that while I get frustrated with one
avenue I have others to turn to and I rarely let myself sit still and not
create something and that’s ok. If I
ever stopped writing or singing or making videos or creating something, that’s when
I’d actually become a sad and lonely person.
That’s probably why I keep my to do list so long as well, but a plan’s a
plan right?
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