John Roderick’s advice to kids
Long Winters’ frontman, and popular Twitter personality, wrote this column for Seattle Weekly. It’s sort of vague, but well-stated advice to aspiring musicians. Here’s an excerpt.
So listening to famous people describe the secret of their success is about as helpful as listening to microwaved popcorn. In most cases they have no idea why they became successful, and they’re too embarrassed or egotistical to admit that it was a product of luck and well-timed blow jobs. The fact is that most musicians toil in obscurity, even the ones who keep pushing and striving until they collapse in a heap. If your “dreams” are to be universally acknowledged as a groundbreaking auteur, may I humbly suggest that realizing those dreams is about as likely as learning to fart rainbows. That’s not to say that there aren’t a thousand ways to have a rewarding and spectacular career in music, but almost every kid I meet has the same short list of goals: blow everyone’s mind, reinvent music, then show up to their high-school reunion riding a gold-plated unicorn.
Unrelated to music, but related to creating things in general and hard work equalling or not equalling success, Stephen Elliott said this:
…if you work hard and are successful it does not necessarily mean you are successful because you worked hard. Anyway, if wealth was a product of hard work then the busboys would be rich, the migrant farmers would be rich, Isaac Fitzgerald would be rich. We believe in hard work but capitalism does not, in fact, reward hard work.
That came from one of Elliott’s Daily Rumpus e-mails. These aren’t posted on the internet, but delivered periodically to your inbox. And they are one of my favorite things on the internet or just to read anywhere. Subscribe here.
I don’t have a ton of input on these two things, but thought they were things to be read and passed along.
