RAVEN MACK is a mystic poet-philosopher-artist of the Greater Appalachian unorthodox tradition. He does have an amazing PATREON, but also *normal* ARTIST WEBSITE too.

Monday, January 25

SONG OF THE DAY: #KingButch

I miss doing haiku slams, and being around actual people. I wonder if we’ll ever have that shit again. Used to do them at Balliceaux in Richmond years back, which was a decent environment, before it went down in metaphysical online flames. Often we were the early show, and there was at least once that I think Butcher Brown was the late show. They put out an album last year that’s absolutely wonderful, which is what this track is off of. It’s weird funk/hip hop/all over music art, which is something I miss about Richmond so much – how there’s all these different flavors that are rubbing up against each other in a very weird way, creating new flavors in the process. It’s like cultural seasoning I guess. Charlottesville, which is where I’ve lived for a while now, has never impressed me artistically. A lot of overinflated senses of self, often propped up by unacknowledged privilege. Any art I’ve seen or experienced or been part of was done completely outside the arts scenes, and usually goes somewhere else as soon as it can. Anything within the arts scene tends to be unseasoned, so to speak, and thus sort of bland, even when intelligent or competent or skilled. That’s a hard thing to admit to be honest, because for better or worse, I’m going to be in this area the rest of my life. But I don’t find that much inspiration here, and usually have to go looking elsewhere. I guess that’s why I miss the haiku slams right now – I’m getting older, and don’t want to be completely insular, inspiring myself all the time. I need outside inspirations, other people doing wild shit that challenges and pushes. And I’m not getting it, which means I do stupider shit in the process too, because now I’m working off the diminishing returns of past inspiration.

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