Tag Archives: creativity

Woohoo! Finally found a way to resurrect my music!!

29 Saturday Jun 2019

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So as much as I genuinely love school and especially doing my podcast,the one thing I do regret in all that is that my first love, my music, has really gotten pushed to the back burner. LOL Witness how bloody long it’s been since I posted anything about my poor, misbegotten album Dark Resistance!! Partly, of course, it’s been that, between school and the podcast, I’ve been just really busy and haven’t had a lot of “spoons”, as we often say in the Disabled community, to spare for it. Because, rehearsing, and especially recording and making my accompaniment tracks, takes actually quite a lot of energy! It takes a particular kind of alertness and focus that I just don’t have when I’m tired, which is a lot.

But also, frankly, as a musician, I found I was running into a lot of access barriers in terms of getting my stuff out there. Because I’m not really mobile – it’s really hard and nerve-racking for me to get to placesnew locations unassisted, it’s hard for me to get out there and gig. And truth to tell, I wasn’t getting a lot of help with that from my fellow musicians. I often felt an attitude of “if you can’t do it yourself and don’t have someone to manage you, why are you even here?” Not a very welcoming feeling!! Plus, I have to compete with sighted, able-bodied people who can more easily move on stage and engage with their audiences and generally look slick. So honestly, I kind of gave up on it. But I regret that, and it pisses me off, because that’s sheer ableism!!

Recently, though, I’ve thought of a way I might be able to revive my music, using the wonders of the internet to bypass my restrictions on gigging. Though, that being said, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to do live gigs! I love performing live when I can!! It just means I might be able to bypass having to get out there and pound the pavement more than I’m actually able to in order to put my stuff out in the world. And it’ll mean that, when people ask me about my music, I’ll actually have something to direct them to so they can hear what I do. And maybe that’ll help the imposter syndrom, too! So look for that coming soon. And of course, I’ll post as soon as it’s up and going!! Because, I’m very excited about it!! Unfortunately, though, that’s not going to be for a while yet. Because, I’m in the middle of moving right now, so life’s pretty chaotic!! But I’m hoping to get that up and going as soon as I can once I’m settled into the new place. Even so, though, that might not be till August or September, or even till later in the fall LOL depending on how long it takes my finances to recover from the move. Ah, the joys!

Anyway, hopefully sooner rather than later. But first, on with the moving!! Then, as soon as that’s done, LOL regular life can resume and I can get to work on this.

So I’ve now joined my generation in being bitten by the podcasting bug!

06 Tuesday Nov 2018

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LOL So once again I haven’t posted in ages! Again, sorry about that. But as usual I’ve been busy, and not only with school! Although, definitely with that. But mostly, I’ve started a new project!

So I mentioned a long while back that I was thinking of starting a podcast of my own. Well, I finally took the leap and did! LOL And as will surprise no one, it is, of course, on Phantom of the Opera. It’s called In This Labyrinth: The Phantom of the Opera In Erik’s Times and Ours, and it’s very much the kind of stuff I do here. Like here, I bring together my Phantom obsession and my passion for Disability-centred intersectional analysis. So so far, I’ve done episodes on how the Leroux novel and Lloyd Webber stage-musicals treat the concept of normalcy, the ableism in the Gerik (the 2004 movie of Phantom) based on the blog-posts I’ve done on that topic here and elsewhere, why I find the Title Song from Phantom so thoroughly awesome (again based on some of the analysis I’ve done here), how Phantom shaped my Disabled identity and continues to do so, and most recently on Phanship and obsession. And next up is one on the Phantom and/as Red Death in the Masquerade scenes in Leroux and ALW, and how those scenes put an unintentional? Disability-political twist on the original story by Edgar Allan Poe that they’re based on. So I’m really excited about that! I was, of course, hoping to have that one up by Halloween. LOL But keeping to schedule has been interesting! Though, of course, I keep trying.

I try to put an episode out twice a month. I thought about doing only once a month, LOL but I knew from my own experience with my favourite podcasts that, if I were the listener, having to wait a whole month between episodes would drive me up the wall! So I decided to do twice a month instead. But thus the delay in posting here. Because, especially on top of school and my teaching assistantship, that schedule can be a challenge to keep up with!!! In spite of that, though, I’m really loving doing it!!! And I’ve got lots more (hopefully) interesting episodes planned for the future. And I’ve even got them more or less scheduled into the new year! Though, of course, there’s room for flexibility. I’ve got a bunch of book and Phanfic reviews planned, plus episodes on the “good girl/bad girl binary” in Phantom, Phantom and economic precarity, mothers and fathers in POTO, and the similarities and differences between Phantom and the classic Beauty and the Beast legend (especially as depicted by Disney)! And I hope to do one on POTO and the famous Beauty and the Beast TV series eventually, especially since I gather there was, at one point, a significant overlap between the fandoms of the two. But believe it or not, I haven’t yet seen the series, so, alas, that’ll have to wait till I do! And of course, I plan to do episodes on race in Phantom, and on other aspects of how gender plays out in the various versions too. So stay tuned for all of that!

Additionally, I really hope to do interviews! Because, of course, while I bring my own perspective and experience, there’s a great diversity out there in the Phandom. And I definitely can’t speak for all of that! So I’d love to have Phans who come from perspectives other than my own – at intersections other than my own – on the show. That’d be very awesome indeed, and make it much more interesting for listeners!

Anyway, so that’s what I’ve been up to. Don’t worry, though, I haven’t by any means abandoned this site, my other writing or my music! LOL It’s just a bit hard to squeeze everything in. So don’t be alarmed if there are longer than usual delays between posts here and/or updates on that other stuff! Because, school kind of has to take priority, and beyond that, the podcast’s taking priority right now, too. But I definitely plan to continue with my other projects as time and energy permit!

If you want to check my new podcast out, though, which, of course, I sincerely hope you do, you can find the show’s website at the link above. And it’s also available on iTunes and Google Play now as well! So, if you like what you hear, and again I sincerely hope you do, I’d be ever so obliged if you could subscribe in iTunes and drop a rate and review. That would be enormously appreciated, as it will help more listeners find the show! You can, of course, also like/follow the show on Facebook, and on Twitter at @ITLPodcast. There’s also a Facebook group, in addition to the page, for sharing and discussion. So by all means join there too, and I very much hope you all enjoy the podcast!

It’s a new year! LOL So where the heck’s the EP?

19 Thursday Jan 2017

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So, yeah, meant to actually kick off the new year with an update. LOL But got running behind! Because it may be a new year, but some things definitely remain consistent. Plus, lots of school stuff! Some loose ends to tie up from last term, and then, of course, my first comp to finish (LOL arcane Ph.D.-speak, in case I haven’t explained this before, for Comprehensive Exam, aka a great big project where I read a ton of stuff and then write something to prove I understood it)! 🙂 But the awesome part is that, the way I’ve worked my comp, I get to talk about Phantom!!! 😦 The sad part, though, is that it’s getting close to being done. And, in my next comp, I probably won’t get to talk about POTO again. At least, I haven’t figured a way to work it in yet! Unless…? Hmmm.

Anyway, I thought I’d update in case some one out there’s wondering where the hell the re-release of my EP is. LOL I know I have been! And, sadly, I can’t say, except that I definitely plan to have it out some time within 2017. For one thing, of course, it has to share life and time with my school work. And that can be a tricky balance! But also, it’s kind of gone through a complete, and somewhat unexpected overhaul!

When I first started putting my music out there, I was really into symphonic metal. And that’s definitely still a huge influence, as you can see if you visit my “links” page! I love the way it blends that hard-rock edge with a classical, music-theatre, or even operatic sound. That’s so awesome! And I love the way it, in doing so, kind of takes classical, music-theatre, and even opera out of the realm of the preppy. Which, love all those other genres though I do, they can all too often be! But I’ve been finding lately that, although it’ll likely remain a huge influence for all those reasons, I don’t want my own stuff to be straight-up metal, even symphonic metal. For one thing, metal’s a very virtuostic genre instrumentally! LOL And, what can I say? I’m just not that good a player on any instrument. But also, I’m finding that I really want to leave room in my music to incorporate a softer sound as well – to really bring some of the sound of the 80s and 90s pop-rock and music-theatre that I grew up on into my own stuff. LOL Yes, shameless nostalgia! So sue me? But there’s a joie-de-vivre about those genres (or there can be anyway) that I really want to incorporate. And I especially want to bring that stuff into the EP/album I’ve been working on because it’s somewhat autobiographical – or maybe mythobiographical to borrow Audre Lorde’s term, and those were really the sounds that I grew up on and that shaped me. 🙂 But don’t worry, I won’t neglect the pop/rock and music-theatre that’s emerged since then! In fact, I’m dying to finally hear Hamilton. Can you believe I haven’t yet? Yikes! And I’d welcome any other recommendations of what’s good out there, too. LOL Half the reason my musical tastes are so far behind the times is because I’m totally lazy about getting out there and finding new stuff! That all will have to influence later work, though. LOL I’ve got to get this album finished first!

So, as you can perhaps tell from the new tag-line on this site, I’ve decided to call my sound and (hopefully) performance style music-theatre punk. And hopefully that encapsulates all the things I love about that genre! – the sound, the acting and story-telling aspects, the influences from both Broadway and the West End, and the importance of costuming and stage-craft. But hopefully it Crips both rock and music-theatre a bit, too, by allowing me to work with my limitations – of musicianship, but also of movement on stage because of my Disabilities – instead of having to disappear them as I would if I were to try to do any of those genres (though especially music-theatre) “straight”. In fact, I’ve kind of re-conceptualized the EP as a one-being musical! And it might even go in for a name-change, thus my having not mentioned the title so far. We’ll have to see! Although, Oo! I think I just had a good idea in that regard! 🙂 Not telling yet, though. You’ll just have to wait and see!

So yeah, that’s where that’s at. As I said, I plan on getting the EP, which, having been re-conceptualized thus, is more likely to end up full album sized, out within 2017. But, within that, I have no idea! LOL I’m not even going to hazard a guess, because, every time I’ve given a release-date before, I’ve run behind and missed it! And I know it’s going to take a shit-load of work to really do it right. And I have no idea how long that’ll take, especially as it has to share life with school! And it really does. Because, my academic work, especially the Critical Disability stuff, is a huge part of what fuels my creativity as weird as that may sound.

🙂 So that’s the plan. And now, off to get working on it! So keep watching this space for further updates!