The Many Faces of Manny Faces

No, not as in MONKEY, as in MONK-Y.

This music thing that I do can fill me with immense pleasure or slam me with melancholy bouts of depression. When I’m getting some of the amazing feedback I get, or hear that people in ATL tell me they heard my Bartender remix on the radio, I feel like I’m getting there, closer to achieving a level of notoriety that will allow me to capitalize on my talents, as well as please more eardrums with what I do.

But when the momentum of a hot release dies down, the pressure grows. I write this as I am listening to the final mixdown of my brand new Alicia Keys - No One remix for about the 364327423th time. It’s a lot of pressure. I listen over and over and over and I find something I don’t like so I fix it and then I listen to it again, over and over and over. When I am about to release a remix, I fall asleep to it on repeat. Sometimes, this is where it doesn’t make the cut (TI - What You Know About That, Chris Brown - Yo - Excuse Me Miss), and more. For anyone who follows me, there are certainly a bunch of remixes that you’ve never heard. Some are as complete as you can get, but just didn’t pass my own litmus test for maximum hot-osity. I get very, very nervous as I’m about to put something out. And then the strategies behind what I do are so intricate, and I get so obsessed with them, I get quite Monk-ish.

Anyway, this perfectionist trait is good though, isn’t it? It helps make sure that I continue my ‘run’ of solid releases. I realize that every time I send an email, I risk that some important person will either open and listen for the first time, or delete and unsubscribe, never having even heard what I do, filing me under T for Trash like the countless other emails from no-name or semi-no-name artists and producers peddling their e-wares and cyber-shouting, “MP2s-for-five, MP3s-for-ten”. But perhaps because I am extremely cautious and calculating, my reputation sluggishly but steadily continues creeping to respectable levels. Maybe the incessant repeat-listening, one-by-one adding of names to the mailing list, carefully constructing my emails to contain just the right amount of info (not too much, not too little, have some personality, but don’t bore them) and all of the hundreds of tiny and not-so-tiny things I do (tweak the website, post to message boards, MySpace bulletins, pray) that all happen AFTER I actually made the damn remix, are as important as making quality stuff in the first place. Assuming I assembled the basic beat ahead of time, it’s still usually a 4-6 hour process to make the remix, add on another 3-4 hours for the ancillary marketing methods and I’ve easily killed an entire weekend workday. (Sheeit, it took me almost 45 minutes just to do the image up in the corner… Hot tho, ain’t it! Hehe.)

Luckily, this weekend my Hunni is visiting her brother and the kiddies are with their grandma and ‘nem. How I treasure this occasional cosmic alignment which allows me to have time to myself to actually accomplish something, as per my previously-blogged-about Rev Run instructions. (Of course, I’m sure Hunni would like me to obsess over household duties as much as I do exactly where my high hats should fall on the breakdown, but music is in the blood and soul babi, I can only make it do what it do.)

Anyway, the song has now played another 23 times or so. Time to stop stalling. Sunday is a good day to release (yes, I consider all the nuances of what day to send emails as well). I figure the club DJs are done and waking up about now. The label and radio and music business heads will have my email toward the top (most recent) in their Outlooks Monday morning, and I won’t get swept up in all the New Music Tuesday emails. The DJs have time to work the joints into their mixes for the week or upcoming weekend… (Ok wait, let me stop giving my strategies out, I do plan on marketing for others at some point, I’d better keep my secrets to myself.)

I will say this though. I did purposely write this blog before sending out the email since I mention the blog in the email, and want to show anyone who actually takes the time to click over here from that email that I’m thinking of them. Which in this case is probably you. So, hi, thanks for visiting! (See how that worked out?). Regardless, I hope you liked the remixes!

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Great… Now I’m nervous about sending it out again.