The joy of being ‘Indie’

Creativity comes in many guises – words, pictures, objects, movement… I’m sure you can other genres too! Ultimately, the output is ‘art’ (or at least debated as to whether it is or isn’t).

Growing up in an environment that spawned some great songwriters and bands who exemplified everything that live performance should be about, it wasn’t immediately apparent that there was a business behind all of this and that it had some sort of control.

I don’t want to be pretentious and say that it was all manufactured – of course it wasn’t. But, there was definitely a naivety of youth that prevailed and without that knowledge, it felt impossible to make a living at it (I’m sure there are thousands who resonate with this).

Returning to the ‘biz’ older and wiser – and with the advent of the digital world we now live in, the opportunity presents itself to be truly independent of the ‘biz’.

Sure… there’s still no money in it (lol), but at least you’re able to present your art to a global audience rather than to those who might be down the local bar on a Thursday night who hear it once and, maybe, never again. Today, the world can tune into some of the great internet radio stations who champion ‘indie’ – like The Shift, 365 Radio Network, Beyond the dawn, Rockers Dive etc.

On that topic and looking ahead, a new All Kinds of Perfect mini-album is on the horizon. It’s entitled, ‘Collins Avenue’. Some of the tracks will be re-engineered and re-recorded versions of songs that were found on the 2014 demo album, ‘Catherine Street’ – such as ‘Lies’, ‘Where is the love?’ and ‘The Bridge’ – plus a couple of new songs – ‘Zwerg’ and another still in an embryonic state.

… And I’m independent. Independent to be able to what I want, when I want and how I want. I can write the music*; write the lyrics*; perform the songs; create the artwork for the sleeves; choose when I release the songs… And that’s the joy of being ‘Indie’.

*with the occasional credit here and there…

Ken.