Bridgetown And Oakland
I’ve held off on releasing tapes for a long while. Hesitated to release some months ago, plans for others started disintegrating, drafted and scrapped, couldn’t step on the gas long enough to get somewhere worth getting out at.
It’s hard to want to jump into the sanctity of someone’s inbox or feed and say “here are a couple things I made in my bedroom, check them out” when there are people being blasted by cops, prejudiced people in power, resources being threatened, humans being trafficked and all the other bad news that is overwhelming us daily. What makes soliciting a hobbyist media and intangible files different than the digital coupons for junk we don’t need that floods our inboxes faster than our friends can email us back?
This weekend a friend whose music has inspired me on a weekly basis, who I just got to see and be blown away by twice in a month was supposed to play a show in Oakland, CA and the venue burned down, killing dozens of people. People I know, that I’ve recently played with, that have booked shows I’ve gone to or released music I resonate with are dead. And countless others are traumatized from losing people close to them in the type of place that we either try to facilitate or at least trudge through our days in hopes of getting to every once in awhile as a safe respite from the garbage world.
Thinking about it all weekend, I once again didn’t want to release music at a time like this, though it was planned a few weeks ago. Seeing ads plastered over the faces of people who died on news articles and the vicious comments below them, knowing that could be any other friend of mine or even me was rough. But seeing my peers sharing stories or music by others that were lost that I hadn’t heard yet, or taken a moment to check out prior, or listened to in awhile got me thinking. What my community makes and puts out there is what lights up my day, occupying dozens of browser tabs with too few hours in a day to get through it all. Even if there will always be bad news, clickbait and digital trash. Even if it’s easy for most to scroll right on by someone’s hard work, it’s treasured by a few who need that little something to keep going.
So I’ve decided it’s time to release some new tapes after months of “maybe later” swirling around in my head because doing this is what keeps me going. Thanks a lot to everyone who’s ever supported in any way and to everyone who helped out with the Midwest tour last month, it was truly surreal.
The new tapes are up at
http://www.bridgetownrecords.info and http://www.bridgetownrecords.bandcamp.com
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For information about the fire from someone that isn’t a copy-and-pasting media vulture: https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/12/04/it-could-have-been-any-one-of-us/
Fire relief fund for victims and their families:
https://www.youcaring.com/firevictimsofoaklandfiredec232016-706684
Be good, be safe and don’t ever stop,
Kevin
