A Quick Update!

Hallo peeps,

This post feels like the first time I’ve actually treated the Tape Deck like a blog, just giving my thoughts without even a hint of an edit. I don’t think I’m even gonna brother spell-checking this one! Anyway, I thought I’d write this as a little bit of an update on what I’ve been doing and where the Tape Deck fits into that. It’s almost as much for myself as it is for anyone else reading.

First I wanted to apologize since it’s been kind of a fallow year for this blog. It’s not that I’ve lost interest in writing. In fact, it’s far from it! This used to be my only outlet, but now I’ve started to expand outward to other publications, where I’ve been covering more well-known music. It’s not like I’m at the level where I’m routinely interviewing people for VOGUE, but over the last year I’ve been given the opportunity to interview some of my favorite artists and performers about their art. I’m grateful for that, but it also means that, as someone who also needs to work a day job so I can afford to pursue my passions, I haven’t had as much time to write here.

It’s been almost three-and-a-half years since I registered the domain name for this blog, and since then a lot has changed. Back then I was just trying to stay creative while my band was dissolving and figured writing about other people’s music was waaaaay more fun and less stressful than trying to play my own. Turns out I was right! For the first time I felt confident in my capacity to be creative. I got to lift other artists’ voices up, I got to see myself getting better as a writer, and I gave myself the permission to be influenced by music of all different perspectives. (That last one is something I used to be afraid of as a person striving to make “important” art. I can see in retrospect how foolish I was.)

What I’m trying to figure out now is where I want to take that skill set, and whether I want to let my passions take me over completely. One thing I want to do more of is come back here, where I can write about whatever I want to and express it as personally as I wish. That’s the ultimate point of a blog, right? One thing I’ve become aware of recently is how much the voice of the editor can drown out your own, and while I’ve learned a lot about grammar structures and the rigidity of academic writing, I’ve always believed that writing, especially writing about something as capable of transcending language as music, doesn’t have to be nearly as rigid. I want to space to really experiment with what music journalism is capable of, and a place like the Tape Deck – which is already a bit of a clusterfuck as far as modern music criticism is concerned – is perfect for that.

That being said, I’m aiming to start posting stuff regularly here again. I’ve got some interviews with some really awesome artists planned, and I also want to start posting more personal stuff: things closer to my heart than what you might find on a more professional blog. Now that I have outlets to pretend to be a comment music journalist, this place is really where I want to fly my freak flag.

I can’t promise there’ll be stuff coming out at a regular place, because I am and forever will be one person, but can promise you that’ll be interesting, 100% free, and worth reading. Bet on it!

Love to ya,

Rob