Scott Liss

Challenging myself to keep this new song rough around the edges. Straightforward and honest. Been using one of my favorite acoustic guitars…a little USA-made Harmony folk guitar from the ’60s. It sounds like it looks.

Photo: Joe Jennings

I hope everyone had a nice 4th of July.

As I’ve said before I’ve been working back at Retromedia Sound Studios for the last few weeks. Paul and I finished up tracking for the last few songs I wrote for my band the Sixty-Six, which will probably see the light of day sometime before the summer is out, and I’ve begun tracking parts of the new solo material I’ve written over the last number of months. Some of these songs will ultimately live alone and some will make it onto what will be my third record. This excites the hell out of me. My last record, The Blackpool Letters, was more of a collection of songs loosely tied together by a few thoughts and ideas here and there, but largely remained a collection of songs. This record I am working on now is going to be more like my first record in that I am aiming for it to be a complete statement from front to back. I won’t say it is a “concept” album but it will most certainly be a unified album with a concept. Riiiiiiight.

“There are three kinds of artists:

• The first kind of artists are the ones who hurt to do what they do. It hurts to write. There is pain involved. There’s experience, and there’s blood.
• The second kind of artists are the kind that imitate the ones in pain.
• The third kind of artists are the kind that just do what somebody tells them to do. Learn this step. Wear this wig. Shake your ass. Watch yourself.

The first kind of artist are the ones who are more popular than the amount of money they receive. The second kind of artist is generally the rich ones, and the third kind… They get dropped from the label because there are a million of them walking around.”

- Erykah Badu

I just watched the documentary Before the Music Dies. It puts the entire decline of the music industry into a corporate bullshit-machine well into perspective. This film further supports the need for a revolution of culture and the arts for the entirety of Western civilization. Regardless, it’s just a good documentary that any musician struggling to “make it” should check out. Watch it in full right here.

Talk soon.

“Artists are lazy people; lazy people become artists.”

Those are the words spoken to me by a friend of mine in the middle of a conversation about having a goal or dream and chasing it. More specifically, chasing the dream of becoming a successful (“success” being subjective) musician. We’ll get to his statement in a minute.

I don’t get life in 2011. Actually, I take that back…I do get it. There are large parts that are pretty miserable to the point that if a person can actually remove his or her head from the ass of said misery for a moment, they’ll have an easier time viewing the goings-on for what they are: a compounded brick of decades of ignorance piled on top of decades of social degradation. We’re living in a decadent American culture that has collectively lost awareness and the understanding of the difference between real and counterfeit elements. We mistake that which is counterfeit for that which is real and we celebrate that counterfeit. At this rate, life these days is an absurdist tragicomedy with a dismal ending. Just wait for it. But that’s another topic altogether.

There is way too much clutter nowadays. It’s everywhere. Too many minds are deluded, too much that was substantive is now diluted, and people want (and even expect!) major returns on their investment of very little work. This idea has been ingrained so thoroughly in so many minds for such a long time that it has helped to degrade the quality of everything in the world around us.

So, back to the “artists are lazy people” statement. In an effort to substantiate his comment, my friend suggested that artists, musicians in particular, seek to work in the arts because it’s a distraction from real life and a good way to avoid having to do any “real work” or having to own responsibility. To him I’ll say, respectfully, you’re a friend, but fuck your statement. Perhaps you speak generally from your own mindset…? Perhaps it is you who strives to avoid “real work” by taking up the arts…? As he knows firsthand, though, getting rich making music or being any kind of artist is next to impossible. Maybe pop stars created as commercial products are sitting fairly comfortably somewhere in NYC or LA, but they usually aren’t artists and what they’re peddling is not art. They are a prime example of the counterfeit being mistaken for the real. They are plastic. They are an image. They are a dime a dozen. They are created and sustained for the sole purpose of making money. The music industry as a whole is a mockery of the arts and everything the arts should stand for. Let’s not mistake this industry for the artists, however. There are artists with a genuine passion and desire to create and share their art and make a living doing so; an honest living; an honest living staying true to what they believe in. There is a difference.

Art is subjective, of course, and very few industry investors care to risk money or effort on such a thing. The industry investors want their quick returns with the least amount of work put into it. They want to find the next copy of something already done and proven to sell. They want the next one created and packaged quickly. They want it made in the same manner following the same format as the previous one. They don’t care about stimulating minds, hearts, or souls with art. They don’t care about spreading ideas, stirring up philosophical discussions, or striving to improve awareness of the surrounding world. This industry very infrequently takes risks investing in art based on it being aesthetically sound, artistically honest, thought-provoking, and meaningful. The industry invests not in art, but in product. There is a difference. The industry today doesn’t care about the virtues of art because this country as a whole is not taught to care about these things. Society is kept watered-down and, with the occasional exception, generally passive.

“Artists are lazy people; lazy people become artists.”

People in general tend to become lazy once they fail to realize the value of hard work, focus, dedication, intellect, thought, and absolute truth. Laziness is not by any means an artistic trait. Real artists care about these things and that care helps to generate their art. Real artists strive to rise up and live in a world where substance matters and where ideas matter; where communicating substance and ideas matter.

I own a hammer and can hit a nail straight but I’m not a carpenter. Silly. Merely owning a MacBook and GarageBand does not make one a recording artist. Merely owning a digital camera and Photoshop does not make one a visual artist. Don’t misunderstand me here; my aim is not to belittle anyone who dedicates time to working with these tools. People are free to explore the depths of their creativity and some will develop into artists, if they aren’t already inherently artists. The arts are meant to be explored and shared. In some ways, these tools better help in spreading the virtues of the arts. My point, though, is that this is a double-edged sword. These same tools are responsible for the watering-down of the interest people should have for the arts. It makes the idea of an artist, of a songwriter, of a song, of a photographer, of a filmmaker so commonplace and boring that to get to art of substance one has to dig through so much garbage that by the time they find the substance they are burnt out and just want to put on American Idol or the Voice, maybe text-vote for their image of choice, and space out.

Double-edged sword, double-edged sword, double-edged sword.

Society, or perhaps social consciousness, shifts with the technology that it embraces. It is hard to keep up with the extremely rapid flow of information that our current technology offers. The mind’s attention span can’t seem to handle it. People are so easily distracted these days. There is a need to regain control over one’s attention. There is a need to return to things of substance, ideas of substance, matters of importance. There is a need to slow down and seek the beauty in intellect, in thought, in creativity, in learning. There is a need to realize the immense importance in the ability to focus one’s attention on something in order to learn and understand it beyond the surface. There is a need to peacefully, beautifully, share ideas with one another so that we may hope to return to elements of the real, away from the counterfeit.

Artists are not lazy. Artists are not seeking to avoid “real work” or responsibility. Anyone who truly cares about dedication, focus, thought, detail, and who immerses themselves in chasing a dream until they arrive is not lazy. Laziness lacks passion. Laziness is apathy. Laziness is decadence is mindlessness is death. Art, on the other hand, is life.

Okay, then. This is the new website. Social networking sites are good and all, but they get a little out of control from time-to-time and having a home base of sorts is always nice. So, welcome.

I’ll try to keep updated as frequently as I have something to say. I’ve been writing a lot of music as of late. I’ve been working on a few new tunes which Paul Ritchie and I have nearly finished…just a bit of mixing and we’re good to roll ‘em out. I have been writing and recording an electronic record. I have been writing and getting ready to record another solo record as well. All in all, I have my hands full and that is a good thing.

I love you all. Every single one of you who has been so supportive of what I have been doing with my music, I am very grateful for your existence in my life. I am very excited to get this new music to you as soon as I can. The Sixty-Six as it has been known for the last six months had taken on a new edge for which I am happy to have directed. I am grateful to have been able to branch off towards a more aggressive, progressive style and write music for performers that could tear it up, play it with energy and precision, but after doing-so, the only natural direction for me as a songwriter is to go at it alone, again. The band thing was no longer working for any of us. The current drummer doesn’t want to play music and put in the effort with no guarantee of making money and my long-time bassist needs a change of pace. I, myself, need a change of pace. It’s easier for some artists to work alone, I suppose. I can speak for myself and say that it the case.

In any event, The Sixty-Six is now once again Scott Liss & the Sixty-Six. That number is special to me and was chosen well before the formation of my permanent band, so, as such, that number might as well be my name. It in itself is a permanent-though-revolving fixture; it is the name given to this large family of talented friends and musicians that I have been extremely fortunate enough to have play my music with me, both live and in studio, at different moments.

If I may ask one thing of you, please follow me on Twitter (@ScottLiss66) and Facebook and share those sites, and this site, with your friends. Your support is everything to me.

Talk soon.

SL