>>> Articles written by Jimmy <<<

/> 24, Oct, 2016
the regret earned by failures are always better
than regretting something for not doing it.

/> 24, Oct, 2016
JUST REMEMBER THIS:

the pressure you got is always YOUR original creation.

so when you feel burdon on your shoulders,
stop whining and blaming other people and environment you're in.

/> 23, Oct, 2016
making & updating website with notepad.exe are not easy.
well, this is an old news.

/> 7, Oct, 2016
two things:
1) some people misunderstand or have no idea how other people ACTUALLY think about them.
they just project or imagine what they want to believe and follow.
and it's a bit sad to watch those people doing their best blindly to keep that faith,
but never really get appreciated or answered.

not knowing the difference between
what's projected on the others and what's actually understood by the others
is pure tragedy.

2) hesitating doing something new or avoiding making new relationships
because of something from the past is like stop breathing after one cough.
some people put themselves in cells, using the burdens from the past as reasons too easily.
well, it's hard to imagine the power and possibilities of chances we choose to MISS,
but it's still surprising fact to me that there're people actively choose to live a boring life.

/> 6, Sep, 2016
i was lucky enough to have my very first interview with professional reporter from a trusty newspaper.
although the reporter has wonderful skills of listening and questioning, i was barely made an acceptable
interview to my own standard since it was not only the first interview i've had,
but also with someone i've never met before. also the fact that i was(and still am) almost totally unknown
and there weren't enough information on my website made the interviewer packed with tons of questions,
which is thankful and pure blessing to me, and 2 hours were only enough for some warm ups.

it was a good opportunity to consider being a little more informative(and visitor friendly)
for those people visit jimmystrain.com to know what kind of whacko the guy is.
this might not be what they're looking for, but i can only hope this to be helpful in anyway
and it will be my pleasure if anyone being left with even bigger/more complexed question
after reviewing this.


in some cases, answering a question with a question is not a nice thing.
but i think giving answers which can lead new questions is wonderful thing and giving an answer that
can cause a birth(or burst) of questions that can only be answered by questioner is pinnacle of answering.
i hope you to enjoy this article.

Question 1> "Why do you make music, is it solely for self-satisfaction?
Except making and releasing your albums, you don't do much thing to make living as musician
like others do such as concerts and gigs, so it seems like you've been doing this as rich man's hobby,
what do you think about this?"

i get this kind of questions and assumptions time to time, especially from those who're in 'the field'
since they know how hard it is to make living by making music or doing something called art.
as far as i know, unless one participates in art involved works of already funded projects
or planed project by company as a member of it, it is almost impossible for one to make living
solely by working as an independent artist or creator.
so how about me? i simply cannot bring any bread on the table and i have daily job for living,
just like many other indie creators. but this cannot be the answer for the question above,
since the question is not about how i make my living.

let me answer the question one by one.

first, do i make music for self-satisfaction?
- yes and i wonder what could possible drive those who never get satisfied by music making keep doing it.

second, do i make music as a rich man's hobby since i don't do much of traditional and regular activities
that other musicians do?
- well, not actually. first of all, i am not a rich man but a guy who's concerned about monthly rent
for 25 days a month, 23 days in February.
and i don't think anybody gets a right to judge what i've been doing as a hobby or define me as a hobbyist,
just because my achievement so far is smaller than other's expectations and standards.

i think my daily hardship shouldn't effect my music too much. not only that,
i think the relationship between one's notion and the reality one's involved in
should not be primary-secondary/major-minor/master-slave type, but cooperative and complementary.
this means one doesn't need to make a song about how hard to make money
even though one's having an economic crisis. dreams and reality, thoughts and experience can always be separated and independent from each other.

because of this attitude, I've never took what i've been doing as responses to reality
or experiences whether it's making music, painting or writing a novel.
my identity will become part timer, construction worker, door salesman and anything
that pays proper amount of money, but that's only my concern.
the identity i want you to know is Jimmy Strain, an indie creator, that's all.
by the way, my co-workers in daily job, some old friends and other people
from whom i don't find the need for them to know me as Jimmy Strain,
don't even have a clue that i'm an indie musician.

Jimmy Strain is not my alter-ego, but a necessary tool and convenient form to do particular job.

i find it's easier and efficient to to dream about abstraction in reality,
become radical in habits and progress in the phase of regression by separate
and isolate philosophical, spiritual and theoretical things from objective, pragmatic and realistic things.


Question 2> "It seems you don't want to interact with audiences through your music."

the good interaction is people listening my music,
the great interaction is their liking and perhaps singing along or humming my tune,
the best interaction is their remembering my tune and possibly its creator.
performing on the stage has its benefit,
but that doesn't mean it can guarantee the best possible interaction with audiences.

the most important thing to interact with other people is publication of what i made.
people react in their own way, someone's worst song can be the best friend to somebody else.
basically interaction between a creator and the user or audiences starts with redefining
and revaluation of published thoughts and philosophy of the creator.
and perhaps because of this, people want to see and hear those published materials which are special to them,
in bigger, more in-your-face, live form. shows, concerts and other activities are fundamentally an extension
of interaction. and the fact that i'm not too enthusiastic or passionate on extending my interaction
doesn't mean i'm not interested in interacting with people.


Question 3> The meaning of publishing

- in the history of an artist
publishing is the dividing point of the past, present and future of creators activity.
what's published is the past, what's on its way to be published is present
and what exists as a plan or a thought to be published in time is the future.

- as the act of practice
as activities of an artist, what's not published basically doesn't exist as in an idea
that never followed by practice means nothing.
publication is the main practice what the owner of a non-pragmatic notion or idea can do.

- transferring of the ownership of notion and idea
publishable work of art is notions and ideas captured and preserved in a specific form
to be introduced and shared by public. once it's being published, only the physical form can belong
to certain people, but not the notions and ideas.
people can have a record of mozart's music, but the beauty of the music can belong to anyone who enjoys it.
reading is good enough to keep the writer's philosophy in his/her heart, owning the book is nice
but a different matter. once published, my music doesn't belong to me.

what belongs to me is various rights to get myself involved in economic events and duties legally,
such as rights to distribute and publish.
on the contrary, the notion, idea, philosophy or anything that made me want to develop, capture
and polish to fit into a particular form(as products) at first, no longer belongs to me but to everyone
who take it in their world and enjoy.
because of this, publishing is an act of bid farewell to what's in the products.

Based on these thoughts, I developed a rule or habit for myself;
A) I don't listen to/read/watch anything that's already published.
To me it feels like calling or seeing EXs after some time, I simply don't want to
and not interested in doing so. And this doesn't mean I don't do proof-reading or quality checking.
I do my best and keep my eyes on every single moment of my material until it finally gets the air.
B) I don't fall in love with my works whether it's published or not.
I do my best to figure out and remember the most important thing in the work,
and try to capture only the essence of it. My biggest concern is the process of making
and once it's done it's not my concern, again, rights and other legal factors
have to be creator's concern, but I don't try to protect the philosophy or to defend ideas in it.
It depends on the people who enjoy it. I already took and gave a lot of love making it,
now love or hate it's all public's.
C) After I publish one, I get ready to start new one.
Once I published something, I collect all the data, memos, scratches and prototypes
that created in the process of making it. Then I put them in a box(usually a shoe box)
and keep it somewhere I don't see everyday.
To start something new, I get rid of both physical and philosophical traces as much as possible
and I rearrange all the furnitures in the room, then some serious cleaning follows.
I do this because I think what happens in physical world always affects
philosophical and spiritual world in different degrees.


Question 4> Why don't I perform live or on stage?

There're reasons that make me not doing it like many other musicians,
and there're reasons that make me less interested in it.

First of all, I don't have band members now.
I know how fun it is to play live on stage and I can never forget how cold beer taste like after the show,
believe me I've done it before and not too old to forget all that.
(Actually this type of experiences and feels are not forgettable as time goes by, eh?)
Well, everybody's got different lifestyles and in different shoe,
and for me, it wasn't easy to find good fellow musicians to get together regularly so far.
Not to mention that I've been busy making my own stuff.

My doors are always opened for anyone who can play and wants to play my stuff, and I may perform theirs, too.
I've never interested in 'hiring' someone just to play my stuff, but interested in meeting someone to grow together.

There're thousands of great independent musicians such as drummers with crazy skills,
bassists sound classical and funky at the same time, keyboardist who widens the soundscape
of whole band with handful of notes, I WELCOME YOU FOLKS! Contact me anytime.

Secondly, basically I'm a guy who defines his published materials as monuments and things of the past.
And that's not interesting as much as making new one to me.
Because of this, I'm also less interested in performing music I've released already.
Please don't get me wrong, I don't think doing the show is a boring thing
and I don't think any band performing on stage is less interesting.
Actually, I like going to live concerts a lot, I mean who doesn't want to see Whitesnake doing the live?!
But it's quite rare that I feel doing or attending a live is more interesting than making new stuff.

Lastly, my habits of enjoying music made me less interested in performing live.
There're roughly two types in enjoying music.
One is based on multiple listening and the other is based on watching and experiencing.
Multiple listening is based on records while watching and experiencing is based on the videos or going to shows.
No one has to choose a part and single sided, in fact most people use both methods to enjoy music.
What we have to understand is people have different ratios based on their likings.
Some people are more interested in collecting records and concentrate on completing the discography
of their favorite musician, while other people only buy a single that has got them hooked
and find it's more fun to following the band on tour.
And I'm that guy who collects favorite band's records, sometimes deluxe/extended versions, limited editions
and even books from the band. without going to SEE them perform live that often.

Well, like I've said above, I'm interested in meeting new people and welcome great musicians.
Don't hesitate to contact me.

/> 8, June, 2016
i once went to an exhibition of a very rich artist.
the artist didn't become rich by selling works, but was born rich.
although those works were hardly sellable, movable and understandable
the real problem was the fact that they all sucked.

the father of the artist was very wealthy, powerful and successful man.
because of that, it seemed like most of the visitors came to shake hands with him,
not to see his child and works.

that man and his child, they both didn't know 3 things;
first, how lucky the artist were
second, how pathetic the artist's works were
third, how ironic it is when the lack of talent meets sufficiency of luck.

additionally, artist didn't know two more things;
first, the title of the book from which almost entire paragraph was scanned for one of the works
second, how to pronounce the author's name.

it was one of those rare nights i felt thankful
not being from a rich family.

not being rich is not a shame but inconvenience,
but being suck at work is the most pure shame for an artist,
and one can only fix either of those - shame or inconvenience.

i guess we all know well that shame is something we hide, not fix.

My new shame is on its way and I'm so excited because it's the biggest shame I ever had
so I won't be able to hide it but will be hid behind it.
And you gonna love it.

/> 31, Helluary, 2016
the single most important practice to improve as musician or any kind of creator is,
studying and understanding oneself:
color of voice, characteristics of playing and etc.,
but the most important question that should be asked every single time one create something is,
"what do i really want?"

if you're a so-called creator
but cannot answer or (in even worse case) don't bring this question up,
then you should stop wasting time, not only yours but also the others'.

/> 23, September, 2015
you can explain why one should change
you can explain how one can change
but you cannot change anybody.
the only outside trigger that can make one change is,
severe crisis...
although, even that fails time to time.

/> 23, August, 2015
if you're being loved by someone, loving that person is not enough.
you must be a better person.
not only that person deserves better version of you,
but the love itself always deserves it.
so if you're in love, don't waste anything.
be better every second, be truthful every moment.

/> 21, August, 2015
number of songs doesn't make it a good record.
one good song can't gurantee it a good record.
a good record means it's a good record.
if a record changes the view of a man, it's a great record.

and if a record saves a life,
that means somebody succeeded in recording something that should be recorded and remembered,
hopefully, forever.

/> 18, August, 2015
if you're regretting many things,
that means at least you have chances to become better in many ways.
because every improvement starts with realization of mistakes.

/> 24, July, 2015
if you are living your life to love someone,
you're the one owing that person big time.
because that person gave you the best reason to live.

/> i wrote some columns, reviews and other stuff for fun.
well, luckily, only a handful of them have been printed on paper,
so i don't feel too much guilt for wasting pulp.

the articles by Jimmy Strain

[ reviews ]
- kor | movie "whiplash" | Max Movie (magazine)
- kor | book review | San Check (magazine)

[ columns ]
- kor | current affairs | The Hankyoreh (newspaper)

[ other stuff ]