Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

mom

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I’m starting to hate “Under My Skin“. Sure, it’s a wonderful song, and i love to perform it alone or with Gina backing me, but it’s starting to make me feel like a one-hit-wonder in training. Despite my playing a whole host of songs for my friends here at Drexel for well over a year, the one they always ask for when i’m playing is “Under My Skin” (or, if it’s Renata – “Play ‘legends of the flesh!'”). While they recognize “Never Say Goodbye,” “Deadweight,” “Crashing,” and “Lost,” “Under My Skin” is undoubtably the one that sticks out in their minds. UMS is the only song my mother has ever complemented me on, even after listening to my entire demo twice last night. I’m truly flattered by all of the attention, but i honestly can’t make a prediction on how long any song is going to be sticking around in my performances for; some songs like “Other Plans” seem to want to hang around forever, but other early favourites like “Touch” have fallen off the face of my musical landscape and are hardly every recalled.

I don’t play things just because people like them – i play them because i have something to say. While it feels nice to know that someone might be singing along to something, there are nights that UMS feels redundant in the face of newer material. Furthermore, i come from the Ani DiFranco school of performing that states that i can leave out any songs i don’t want to play, and that i can feel free to change the tempo and lyrics of anything people seem to be too comfortable with. Of course, at this point i shouldn’t give a fig about challenging my audience – i ought to just find one. It’s just that i see all the attention getting funnelled towards the middle of my new cd, where “Under My Skin” lies, and all the other songs that i worked harder and longer on are being ignored. I think i’m going to leave UMS in it’s pre-mix for the album … raw, and unfinished. It isn’t a perfect song, and there’s no reason i should try to make it sound like one.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/04/3346623/

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Sometimes i think my mother is a little stupid about some things, but she refuses to admit it. But… she is! In the same way i’m still relatively dumb when it comes to finance and relationships, she really has no practical experience in performance or extra-curricular activites. She simply doesn’t get the dynamics or point of my music fraternity. She was the person who initially suggested that i deter Selina from joining because it would interfere with my life. I thought that was the most immature thing my mother ever said and i told her as much. Predictably, concerns about my treatment of Selina in terms of the fraternity were brought up last week and i was able to defend myself without the slightest hesitation because i know i’ve been nothing but fair to her – and everyone else leapt to my defense as well. In my mother’s mind, this is just a club of friends, and i have every right to put up a big unfriendly sign that says “no ex-girlfriends allowed.” Even though we’re all friends, the fraternal aspect gives the group a wholly different dimension – one that my mother has never experienced in any group she’s been in as far as she’s ever made me aware. What i’ll hand to her is that she’s dumb like a fox; while i can’t always take her advice because it would be utterly inappropriate in any given situation, it’s usually the best advice. So … i suppose she’s not so stupid after all – she’s just trying to hard to give me the right answers to questions in the wrong categories.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/04/3346078/

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Do you remember when you were very little and didn’t know how things worked? I mean… forget for a second about the clichés like “Why is the sky blue” and “Where do babies come from” and think about something more practical instead. I remember that i used to think you paid for every single time you picked up the phone, and every number you dialed was tracked – just like cell phones are now. Once in second grade i had to call one of my friends four or five times because the number was busy, and later that day i sheepishly apologized to my mother, saying “I’m really sorry mom, but you’re gonna see Leahla’s number a bunch on the bill cause i had to keep dialing it, but i’m really sorry ‘cuz i had to call her.” Once my mom was done with her little chuckle she was happy to explain to me that i could call my classmates as much as i wanted to and not worry about the bill. Sometimes i remember funny little things like that, and i always get the notion i should write them down in case they never come back to me again.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/04/3291862/

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Well, to be fair to my mother, i never liked the live version of “Heartbreak Even,” and now it’s eclipsed my entire musical collection, so… there’s something to be said for studio production.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/04/3204327/

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So, um, yeah. My mother hated last year’s demo because she’s stupid. Or, rather, she is all about the show that’s put on for her, and she can’t notice lyrics or songwriting without it. The demo was explicitly meant as a showcase of those two things, since it totally lacked quality of production, but she could never get past that so she never really listened to it. So, suddenly she’s handed a tape with a studio quality “under my skin” on it, and she wants to send it to the record companies right now despite the fact that it still pretty much sounds like shit. Of course, she doesn’t care, because the studio EQ and the backing vocals are there so she can gush all over it and say that i’ve never done anything worthwhile ever before in my life. Which is the worst compliment she could ever pay me, because this is the product of my life, not its sum total. Or something. This is why she’s in Florida right now and i don’t mind so much…

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/04/3204160/