Woeful Are the Tales of Creative Insecurity
Spike In Vain - God On Drugs
I’m currently taking a break from an actual real-life paid writing piece that I’ve hit a soft wall editing. I’ve never thought seriously about writing before, because to me it seems like even more of a fairytale of freedom (reality: struggle and elusive reward) than even visual art did.
I’m doing it right now mostly here: on a platform that attempts to level the field, meaning I’m my only gatekeeper. That’s all very exciting until you find yourself repeatedly asking what your goals are, where your measurements for success lie, and where creating fits in the bigger priorities of life, which in my case ranks writing somewhere in the emotionally satisfying upper part of my list, while practically some place buried much farther down.
Sometimes, this leveled playing field feels like a curse, in only that the possibilities it can and has allowed also can thrust anyone participating into asking questions of their intent; suddenly what seemed like a fun outlet only befits so much without the dedication of discipline and hard work, and gasp…self-promotion. And that can place a whole new emphasis on what you’re doing any of it for.
What’s the point of any of it if in the end, it’s just you and a handful of people you know at the party? Especially if it causes tension around security and value in a capitalized world?
Spike In Vain would likely be an obnoxious band if they were around in 2021. Because I can imagine them taking an anti-aesthetic to promotion that would actually be the opposite. And maybe because they’d have to spend so much time on this, or concerned about their social media and indie press and running their Bandcamp or anything else, maybe it wouldn’t actually be as exciting to have discovered them, as it must have been to see them randomly in some veteran’s hall in Ohio or on a college radio show in the South. They represent what hardcore in America really was in the 1980s. An extension for the weirdos and outcasts, bands like United Mutation and Saccharine Trust, or
Power of the Spoken Word. There’s no need to measure metrics, or stats. Because success like that doesn’t exist on the fringes.
Because I don’t have an editor for SERMONS!, nor do I even have a mission statement or a rudimentary road map, I just plug away, hoping someone stumbles upon it, and is curious about it, annoyed by it or very into. Disinterest and boredom are the nails in any creative coffin.
Spike in Vain, y’all. Cleveland, Ohio, y’all. 1984.
Like what what’s going on here? Bombs away in the comments!
Not into this song? Stick around for the next one, it may be what you didn’t know you needed! Remember, there are only two genres of music here at SERMONS!: good and bad, and I have too much to do to waste time on bad music.