Bread and Dreams

Fighting back isn’t the same as equality, and you don’t make a better world by playing by the same rules of the broken world.

If life’s a game, it’s fixed and we’re all gonna lose, so why not play the game you want to play and laugh at the world with its silly rules.

For your immigrant great-grandparents who worked so hard to make a better life for you just so you could ruin it by dropping out of college and pursuing art, raise the middle finger of love. Ghosts can go fuck themselves, and the past can die, for there has been no one in the history of humanity who has not at some point been unsatisfied with simply surviving.

Maybe when you’re running from a tiger or ducking in a bunker or slaving in the fields or watching the clock behind a desk you forget to let yourself get angrily existential, but there will be lonely nights.

There will be nights when the weight of all your years have added up to will come rushing up and form a lump in your throat. There will be nights when you want so bad to quit your job but the rumbling in your stomach, the leak in your roof, or the crying infant down the hall just won’t let you.

You will be told that it is a brave sacrifice to be a cog in the machine.

You will be told that this is life and we must make the best of it.

You will be sold to, lied to, advertised to.

You will be a number on a spreadsheet, a statistic of the times, and if anyone notices you at all, it will usually be for some way you inconvenienced them.

I urge you, however, when the tide of this human waste pile comes rolling over you, do not charge at it in anger. Turn to your left or to your right, look up, look down, and just go some other way.

For the wave of history will always wash over you, crashing and filling up your nostrils with its suffocating, salty weight. Whether it be going along for now or leaving altogether or simply taking each moment as it comes, whether in quiet rebellion of secret wild thoughts or in open defiance of all that civilization has built, I urge you not to underestimate “the way things are”.

Instead, I would dare you to let things be as they may be and know you are not slave to them even so. For when you die, and you will die as all things do, you can laugh at those who will matter the suit you wear at your own funeral.

--------------------------------------------
more music coming soon. i know it's been over a month and the whole once a month thing isn't gonna be what it's gonna be, but should art really ever come on a schedule? i am getting together with my engineer soon as our lives coincide, okay? okay.

ima be way too honest for a second

dear internauts,

one of the major things holding my development as a functional human being back for years has been my inability to forgive myself for perceived pain i’ve caused others.

whether real or imagined, i could never let myself reach that place where i no longer carried the weight of the past.

i told myself that if i were to cross that just-a-bit-too-thick line of forgiveness, i would be somehow dishonoring, disrespecting, or in some other way not appreciating the extent of the pain i had caused them, that i deserved to be in constant torment for something i had done or at very least something for which i’d been blamed.

i’m not absolutely certain how to let go of all those feelings right now; their roots are still burried too deep, clinging onto the bones of my personality.

however, i have been here long enough to know that no one is helped by my feelings of self-loathing, and that neither redemption, reconciliation, or reformation are found in torturous punishment.

taking responsibility for my actions and learning to let go of responsibility for those things outside of my control are the only ways that i can begin my part in making good out of the bad.

when it comes to people, it’s always more complicated than good and evil, because when it comes to good and evil, it’s never going to be enough.

yours,
odist

RPM Challenge

SO I attempted the RPM CHALLENGE!!!

Notice, I used the words attempted.

Unlike NaNoWriMo, this was not a success. In fact it was almost the opposite.

I did however, write and record a 7 song EP, entitled Dear Friend Pt. II

It's all very experimental electronic semi-biographical nonsense.

And for those keeping score at home, yes this is a sort of sequel to my first electronic ep, Dear Friend

That was maybe 2005 though, and I don't even have a copy of that one anymore.

So I'm thinking I'll have it up for a week for free on noisetrade, and if you read this and decide to download that...have fun.

Sometimes you must experiment to grow. Or something.


Dear Friend Pt. II

Unsatisfied

Shot from a cannon, I've known chaos before but always trusted that I was aimed in a direction.

Tests, Projects, Semesters, Graduations, Shows, etc...

There was a goal, once, I think. To reach that goal things got really crazy for a while, but it was always within the bounds and borders of at least having a destination. The cannon was pointing toward something, and generally, despite severe wind resistance, I flew how I had to fly and at least there was an impact of some kind. It was usually expected, though maybe not living up to full expectations. It was something tangible, calculable, definitive at least in that I would be hitting something before I moved on toward aiming for something else.

That's what we do; we check off the boxes of maturity.

Then suddenly we're free-falling. What's next? Up to you. What should you do? Up to you.

The only outside restrictions are the law and survival, and it's very easy to separate yourself from those that care about the latter.

(Doesn't it get complicated too when you realize that good people sometimes break laws and bad people often don't need to break them?)

So here we are, out in the midst of the wild sandbox of adulthood where we choose our own responsibilities and generally keep ourselves accountable.

A friend recently told me they miss having purpose in their life. Another person said recently that everything will work out for good (okay, a lot of folks say that.)

We're all trying so hard to find the secret meaning behind all this normalcy, to find our place and our purpose. I think maybe many of us were raised to believe that there's this space we're supposed to fill up and we'll be unsatisfied until we can fit perfectly inside it. Once we do, we can just ride it all the way to the grave, I guess.

I used to think like that, but lately I'm of the camp that says we find ourselves at the result of our choices and must continue to make choices.

Meaning is given more than found. You can read a book that someone else wrote but the themes and the imagery that lasts will be that which most resonates with the choices you continue to make on the daily.

Who you are, who I am, isn't necessarily just a puzzle pieces fiddling around for the correct fit. Nor are we any long just flying from one checkpoint to the next.

We are who we choose to be--someone who holds on to old fears, grudges, and expectations, or someone who takes account of their current situation, takes responsibility for what is theirs and doesn't stress about what's not, and lives their life. That's meaning, that's purpose. We make it with our choices.

Not to say that there isn't meaning to be found in and through and behind everything, but often it's not meaning dressed as answers but meaning revealed to be bigger questions, challenging us to keep pushing forward.

Why?

Well...

Perhaps because we're unsatisfied with simply hitting things we've been told to hit.

New Music-- Mend (or The Problem with Love Songs)

Hello dear Internauts,

I suppose I should start this off with an announcement!

BRAND NEW MUSIC!!! Yay! (check it out right HERE)

The new song is called MEND

It's a bit of a mix between some R&B grooving, bluesy alt/art-rock, and spoken word poetics.

But who cares about any of that right?

Really it's just an excuse to show off some of the amazingly talented folks I've met down in Nashville! This particular experiment features the talents of Tyler Sutphen on lead guitar, Ashley Wright on keys, Jacob Utting on Bass, and Whitney McCombs with some tremendous vocals. As per how we do, Jacob worked that engineering magic, Alex Crain mastered something fierce, and I may have done some acoustic guitar and percussiony stuff and maybe rapped and sung a bit or something (who can really know).

But now down to the stuff I only share with my lovely blog-readers (the maybe 2 or 3 of you special folks in all the multiverse).

Why Mend? (Why in the world did I write and record this strange concoction of musical styles and thematic imaginings?)

Well, let's start with the MUSIC ---

The acoustic guitar part was the first thing I wrote, and about an hour before coming in to the studio for the first time, I (nearly) completely rewrote it. See, I had been mulling it over for a while, and it was too simple, too obvious, so I sat down on the edge of a small park and added just a pinch of groove to it.

This groove was built upon when Jacob and I were figuring out some percussion for the beat. The kickdrum-like sound was achieved by my foot kicking a door, and the snaredrum-like sound was achieved by the quick shutting of two hardcover books. To find just the right hi-hat/tiny tambourine sound for the subdivision, we employed a pen and a glass pill bottle. Add some claps and a bit of delay and a beat is born. The bridge between the melody and the rhythm provided by Jacob's high class bass playing; if you listen to the verse, he really found something special with that riff.

The next step of course was bringing in the talent. I have met some truly insightful instrumentalists since coming down here, but these folks I met back when I was at the Contemporary Music Center in Brentwood, TN. Between Ashley's classical meets pop keys and Tyler's precise and emotive blues guitar, the space was filled in and the energy really builds up. I learned so much watching each of their unique approaches to coming up with a part that melded their personal styles with that which most grew the song.

I knew though that this song was in many ways inspired by listening to my friend Whitney McComb's own EP and that her voice would suit it perfectly, even as I was writing it. There is a deep soulfulness and longing there behind her phrasing. I believe she took the melody I'd written and gave it a whole new life and distinction.

Taking all that together and mixing it just right requires a disciplined ear, hours of painstaking work with tiny subtleties which often go unappreciated, and of course patience with a crazy artist who never quite knows what they want. Jacob Utting can take a blast zone of ideas and organize it into a playground of a singular vision. Seriously, he spends so much time helping bring my psychotic dreams to fruition with a patient dedication every artist should envy for their engineers.

Honing that all in to a point, bringing out what works and smoothing out the rest is what the mysterious world of mastering is all about, and I was very glad that Alex Crain agreed once again to help us all make that possible.

It took some time, some hits and misses, and a whole lot of experimentation, but there is an artfulness than can only happen through collaboration. I am incredibly grateful to have gotten to work with these amazing folks. After all, my real hope for this whole Odist Abettor Music thing is about bringing folks together to create something of both artistic and sociological value.

Which brings us to the LYRICS ---

Did I ever really love you

Did I ever take the time

Did I ever really want you

Or did I just want you to be mine

Did I hold you like a trophy

When I should have held you like a friend

This is my confession, I treated you like a possession

All along, but what I possessed was at best pretend

And now what I’ve broken I can’t mend

You know what they say, it’s great until it ain’t, and you can serve it up on a multi-million dollar plate/ But will it still look the same waking up the next day, when the fairy-tale has faded and fate must’ve made a mistake/ So we fake it till we break it enough to give it away, never puttin’ on the brakes to whom we give it away, anyway/ and then we dare to be dismayed when they don’t see it our way/ when what was charming gets alarming and our heart’s led astray/ we’ll play the game, adjust our aim, and leave the past to be blamed/ seeking completion, over-reaching, when our target’s the same/ we’re not two halves to a whole, but rather holes that feel halved/ in our attempts to fill the emptiness with what we can’t ever have/ and to possess whatever wrestles us from selfish introspection/ by clues we follow through in Hollywood’s grand deception/ so I’m suggesting we break the trend and end with an intervention/ here’s to love and all it can be when we set aside our pretension and mend it...

Did I ever really trust you

Did I ever really share

Any part of me that really mattered

Would you have even cared?

Did I hold you like a trophy

When I should have held you like a friend

This is my confession, I treated you like a possession

All along, but what I possessed was at best pretend

And now what I’ve broken I can’t mend

You know what they say, but would I say it again/ try to retract so we can act like it’s not playin’ again/ the fantasy of first dates like loose change in your pocket/ stored up bits of expectation from payments of a big lie you bought into/ and you can choose and i can choose if the abuse of our past/ and the paths we’ve stumbled down will echo through it and last/ if we’ll see the other through the lens of the hurt that we both carry/ all the bones in the closets of broken homes we never seem to bury/ and if the wounds that we keep nursing are a curse of our own making/ self-inflicted by our insistence we don’t deserve the time healing’s taking/ when really we don’t think we’re worth being loved at all/ or maybe we can defend love, mend up, and watch these old walls fall/ as i admit my imperfections will you back up in disgust/ or will we work to earn this trust—building up into something real/ one small step at a time to chase after more than what we feel/ that’s wider than emotion, taller than a glass ceiling, honestly imperfect but what starts here is healing

Did I ever really love you

Did I ever take the time

This is my confession, you were never my possession

I wasn’t yours, and you were never mine

I'm not gonna go on for too long about this. I prefer folks interpret meaning in a song however best works for them. Some of these words first came to me while I was in a philosophy class almost two years ago, and some I wrote on my way to the studio.There is definitely an attempt here to present my version of a love song, whatever that means. I was inspired by how often we see love presented in terms of ownership. "You complete me" is a ridiculously self-centered way of looking at love, as in I am mostly good except for this piece I need which you can provide for my benefit. Even saying that someone else is yours makes me feel uneasy, whether meant cherishingly or not. That love should be about giving more than receiving seems to be an idea often missing completelt from our loves songs, also that love is therefore painful and sad and confusing and forces you to deal with scars and baggage---BUT THAT'S OKAY! Love heals, but first it must recognize that we're all broken.

Then again, if you find yourself catching a different meaning out of it, I am more than okay with it. As John Green has pointed out about books, they belong to their readers. This music belongs to its listeners. Interpret as you will.

If you do decide to download a copy of the new song, any proceeds will be donated to This Star Won't Go Out Foundation--

       The purpose of This Star Won’t Go Out foundation is to financially assist families struggling through the journey of a child living with cancer. Caring for a seriously ill child creates tremendous stress for the family system, and having to worry about money is both burdensome and distracting. TSWGO’s goal is to carry a bit of that burden for hurting families through financial gifts.

Feel free to listen to and download the song HERE

(all music and lyrics copyright 2013 Luke Schutz)

Bread and Fish

So there was a fundraising event to help the displaced in my community, employing a volunteer workforce mainly composed of the displaced in my community with the promise of a free meal. I trust that those leading the whole endeavor had good intentions, and honestly, having something meaningful to do that day felt kinda fulfilling. Sure, it was hot and we had to get up early, but we set up the tents and the stage and the lights and carried heavy machinery in mostly good spirits. We got to meet folks in the music business, mostly the organizers and the members of the bands and crew that were performing.

Everyone was really nice and gracious, but something was bugging me.

Something usually is, but I swear I wasn't looking for it this time.

Beneath all the well-wishing and help and free lunch...well, yknow what they say about free lunch...

I couldn't help but feeling that there were those among the leaders who felt it necessary to teach us a lesson. Between the talk and the posturing, more than one person seemed to be insinuating that we needed this (or rather, I suppose, "they" needed this, for none of the folks there knew I was in my car at the time). They needed it to teach them that you have to work hard for your lunch, that to get what you need to survive, you gotta struggle and strive and push yourself.

"It's good for them to learn this," they propose. We all say so with such self-righteous condescension.

Except these weren't little kids. The volunteer workers that came in the shelter van were full grown men, some a little older than myself, some almost my grandfather's age. They had struggled and strived and pushed themselves to surive their whole lives, and it was somehow good for them to learn about that necessity? This was somehow all part of the program to help them?

I can understand and do support the idea of offering opportunities to help folks find purpose and do something meaningful. Teach a man to fish and all that jazz.

What I find reprehensible, however, is the idea of folks who are struggling daily just to get by being treated like they need to learn about the value of earning your bread by those who have had a baseline of support and guidance their whole lives (or at least in this moment had no reason to worry about where the next meal was going to come from).

It's those who grew up going to the finest schools where money was no issue when it came to the quality of education refusing to allow help to go to those who aren't able to even get the bare minimum of public education and then blaming them for their lack.

As I listen to the Republican congress defending the upper class with the guise it'll help the middle class and the Democratic congress defending the middle class with the guise it'll help everyone, I can't help but think that the majority of congress have spent most of their lives far from the bottom.

I don't care about the fiscal cliff, or any more of this indoctrination that banks must be bailed out while children go hungry. If you're so caught up with the idea that capitalist competition is the way to care for people, you've lost sight of what it is to be a caring human being.

That is, of course, if you were ever allowed the honor of being poor enough to know how to care.

New Single: Here's to Hope

After months of recording and re-recording and mixing and remixing and craziness...

I am wicked amped to announce the release of my new single:

Here's to Hope

Which is now available for download right...here. 

I'm starting this new project btw, where the proceeds from every single I release will go to a different charity. That way, even if you hate my music, you can help some folks out. 

All download proceeds of "Here's to Hope" go to support families in need in south eastern PA through The Bridge Compassionate Ministry Center

[from their website:] 
"The Bridge Compassionate Ministry Center: serves our neighbors in need by providing food, clothing, household goods, furniture, referrals, and encouragement. Open ever Tuesday evening, we serve 30-50 families a week and 500 different families from throughout the Avon Grove School District each year."


Thank you to anyone who has supported and encouraged me through these past six months. I'm gonna keep pressing on and pursuing this dream, and I encourage you to chase after your goals as well. You can make a difference. Happy 2013! 

"Here's to Hope" - Odist Abettor 
(Copyright 2013 Luke Schutz) 

Written by Luke Schutz 

Produced by Luke Schutz and Jacob Utting 

Engineered by Jacob Utting 

Mastered by Alex Crain 

Percussion- Luke Schutz and Jacob Utting 

Rhythm Guitar- Luke Schutz 

Lead Guitar- Christopher Murphy 

Bass- Jacob Utting 

Keys and Aux. Instrumentation- Jacob Utting