My thoughts on art in our moment + friendly reminder for Elastic Thursday
Hello friends!
At the end of last week I went on a deep dive into my creative archive. Revisiting old recordings both released and unreleased brought back tons of memories both good and bad, but also provided me a sense of centeredness in my identity as I try to wrap my head around exactly what I'm trying to say with my upcoming projects.
I had plans to compose a little article about the personal twists and turns of the creative process, but then yesterday everything going on in the United States and the world really hit home.
Thoughts on the moment
My brain has been protecting my spirit to some degree for the past few weeks. Logically the signs of America's descent into fascism have been obvious for a long time, but taking the space to let the world in and to educate myself yesterday brought me a new level of heaviness. The feeling honestly reminded me of the feeling I had almost five years ago when my brain truly accepted that we were in a pandemic for real.
The internet is full of much more informed takes about the legal and social implications of everything the new regime is doing to hasten our demise as a species, so I'm not going to take time on a diet rehashing of the news, but I will say I strongly feel that we are heading towards a time of self and inter-communal reliance I've certainly never known in this country in my lifetime. To put it very lightly, most of us are going to viserally miss the beneficial if not fully sufficient things our government (or at least some members of our government) have carried out in the background so we could live our lives even a tad more easily.
All this being said, we can't dive into the gloom, especially not when there are nice things and relationships to be had.
Where there is work to be done, there is need for mental and spiritual rejuvination. Whenever I get worked into a knot about the importance or lack there of the music world, I just have to think back on the many years I was not lucky enough to work as a professional musician / artist. Albums and concerts often got me through the day, or at least gave me something to regularly look forward to. Even now that my life is saturated with music, my solo time at the drums almost always leaves me feeling better. And now when I need a break, I have indipendent fiction podcasts made by determined creative people that bring me a bit of hope, joy and some cool ideas to chew on.
Is the already limited viability of an art career about to take even more hits? Absolutely, but that's beyond the point right now. I'm not going to stop trying to advocate for myself financially, but right now it's time for us artists to remind ourselves why we got into this in the first place. We're not special. We, like everyone else, just have particular skills, and we can use those skills to bolster moral--both through in-person events and the creation of art that can be enjoyed on one's own time.
It's time to relearn to appreciate the small things and to get reacquainted with sharing space with one another. Musicians and artists should help lead the way in doing so.
Tommy Carroll Trio at Elastic this Thursday
I am excited to blow off some steam this Thursday at Elastic Arts. Unfortunately, my guitarist Marcos Rios has fallen ill (he's getting better just not ready for showtime), so saxophonist David Boykin will be joining me and Lyn Rye for a ripping set of my compositions and some free improvisation for freedom.
We play first at 8:30 followed by Paul Abella's Questionable Decisions, a local jazz-rock outfit.
Elastic is BYOB and a relaxed environment. I hope to hang with some of you there.
A good take on our times
If you're looking for one of those more informed and sensitive takes on the internet that I mentioned above, you should definitely check out the commentary by my friend and collaborator Lyn Rye. Lyn is a killer bassist in addition to being a community worker, scientist and writer. She describes her page like this: "I write about how much we need each other and what to do about it."
Stay Safe,
Tommy