REPURPOSE

This blog post is a sort of sequel to my last one about editing images and sounds in harmony. In the process of repurposing old videos with new sounds, I discovered a spark of creativity that is useful in just about any endeavor. I took the old adage that “perfection is the enemy of the good” and ran with it with the impulsivity of a child. Take a look at this playlist of new “music videos” I just created.

You will probably notice familiar characters, movies and pop stars interwoven within the sonic fabric I made here. At the risk of losing any perceived mystery as an artist, I will confess my process which is obviously not entirely organic. What I mean is that I took the creative impulse and channeled it through the technology I have accessible to me on my laptop. We sometimes take for granted the incredible tools available at our fingertips, evolving exponentially day by day.

In essence, I played around with garageband software and the musical loops built within, mixed those sounds with some pop jingles, tweaking and sometimes reversing them, until I came up with something approaching electronic dance music. I have always had an aversion to making music this way, preferring instead the organic approach of “jamming” with other musicians. But what sounds great in a room does not always translate to the internet. So I took these little songs and built videos from repurposed footage around them and was pleasantly surprised by the results, especially because it took so little effort to make them sync up properly. I think it worked out because I turned off my self-critical inner voice and just experimented until it worked.

So, which came first? The music or the videos? Without a doubt, the music came first… and each track inspired the concept for its corresponding video. To my delight, the spacey sounding tune I made from a remixed Röyksopp track called “In Space” (my favorite electronic song ever) lined up perfectly with the famous “Blue Danube” scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey (my favorite space propaganda film). The string melody from the James Bond tune “You Only Live Twice”, reversed and remixed into a new song, lined up effortlessly with the trailer for the film of the same name. A house music dance track I made at 136 beats per minute (inspired by the ’90s EDM track “Sandstorm”) needed some dialogue to spice it up so I found the “choose life” scene from the Trainspotting sequel, mixed it with the opening “choose life” scene from the original movie and suddenly discovered a satisfying music video worthy of Danny Boyle’s bold cinematic vision. The other tracks incorporate deep house, industrial, latin mambo, jungle rhythms and old school hip hop to create familiar but new sounds which I complemented with images of Prince, Guns N’ Roses, Ryan Paris and the characters from The Mambo Kings. It was all pretty spontaneous but it came together easily in less than a week.

I don’t share these videos as some grand statement about my creative genius. On the contrary, these are throwaway musical experiments that seem appropriate for the endless sea of stylish internet sh*tposting. It was actually my buddy Ryan who introduced me to the vaporwave retro sounds of George Clanton who I went to see live in Appalachia. It made me realize you don’t need much to be an artist… just some accessible technology, some basic skills, some microphones and lots of creativity. That show sparked a new vision for me and helped me spawn these weird little videos.

The challenge many artists face is a question of identity and how to reach an audience, especially in the oversaturated digital world we live in where everybody is vying for attention. I suddenly had to reconcile between my various digital accounts and decide how to market myself. It used to be easier when I was a first gen facebook face and could reach out to thousands of friends and followers instantaneously. But Big Brother booted me off their platform for thought crimes, apparently, and I had to start over from scratch. Since YouTube took punitive measures to limit my reach as a content creator due to some controversial documentary videos I posted regarding the last election, I have an uphill battle to get new viewers. The internet is not a meritocracy. Any tool can be used for evil or for good… so I am taking advantage of all these tools–Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube— and trying to use them for good. It’s not ideal but it’s pretty cool to be able to make something and share it with the world without ever leaving the house. An introvert’s dream.

If nothing else, I hope my little videos and blog posts inspire you to be impulsive, creative and artistic in every endeavor you pursue. We live in a society where people think they need permission, money, an agent, a union or a record contract to feel validated. The problem then is you are likely to sell your soul to the highest bidder and lose your integrity as a free man or woman. The technocracy is going to keep controlling the narrative… but it’s hard to control a free spirit who lives by his own rules. So keep your mind open and make cool things before you die. That’s my motto. And if you feel like your life has lost its purpose, simply take a deep breath and repurpose your life.

That’s why I called this project “Repurpose”… and, on a final note, I think I found the perfect title for my next project, which will attempt to make music in a totalitarian digital world controlled by algorithms… So, yes, you can look forward to my forthcoming album which is sure to be called “Algo-Rhythms.”

LMAO!

@leddysetgotv

P.S. If you hate YouTube as much as I do, you can see all my videos (including the censored ones) without ads backed up on Odysee 🙂