Maintaining productivity on a blog has proven to be one of the hardest, most impossible things I've ever tried to do (keeping a smooth shaven chin has proven equally impossible). As with all things internet, though, my blogs have stuck around and so have I. You can still read my off-the-cuff album reviews or stream-of-consciousness registrations of me wandering through Amsterdam or buying a guitar in Paris. Looking back, most of it is pure shenanigans. People seem to have enjoyed at least some of it. I even managed to get an audition for a successful Dutch band by writing how hard it was to play the bass parts of their former bass player... That was a pretty spectacular side effect of having a blog, I'd say.
Since then, my music writing has dwindled a bit as a result of my return to University to study English Language and Culture here in Utrecht, my residence for the past 3,5 years. I've continued to write on and off for OOR in the meantime, but I've been exclusively spreading those via social media. In my academic writing, music has not been completely out of the picture either. On more than one occasion, I plagiarized the titles for my essays from song titles. Burning Down the House, The Song Remains the Same and Make Some Noise made their way to various title pages the past two years. I've written about US literature and music consumption, which was kind of a vindication for the fact that I never really learned to write proper essays when I was enrolled in Music Studies in Amsterdam. But I haven't managed to get back to blogging as a means of either artistic self expression or (academic) criticism these past years.
...Until now. In the past months I've largely given up on social media, which has cleared up quite some time and energy for other things. Furthermore, I've found that I still have plenty of private thoughts and opinions that might be of some use to someone out here on the interwebs. As it stands, OOR is a great medium, but my palette is limited there to live reviews. I still enjoy writing one of those from time to time, but my hunger to develop different styles and forms of writing is pulling me in a different direction. So here I am, quite possibly talking to myself on a blog which exists in a social media vacuum.
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| Still from "Nick Cave: 20.000 Days on Earth" |
There is, however, a second motive to return to writing for this blog. I'm embarking on a quest to write a bachelor's thesis this summer. For the next 4 months, I will be immersed in the world of Nick Cave, studying him as a poet, a novelist and a screenwriter, as well as a persona in a self-created rock 'n roll myth. I'm considering publishing excerpts from my writing, as well as a host of the superfluous ideas which pop up in the course of my studies but have fuck all to do with my thesis. I reckon it will either be a complete High Fidelity nerd thing or a half-assed literary effort depending on what inspiration gets to me. In any case, it seems Distorted Reflections continues to be a fitting title for my personal blog. Come to think of it, might be a contender for the title of my thesis as well. All the more reason to get back to publishing some stuff on here.
One final note, on 'return to writing' posts. I've done a bunch of these over the years, intending to start new series of articles, inspire new vigor in myself or just to get some attention. It never fucking works, and I always feel stupid when I come across them years later. So much for good intentions... Bollocks! So why do any better this time? Well, with the attention seeking brought to a minimum as a result of my social media absence, I'm hoping I might start to write purely for my own benefit and enjoyment. Hopefully, it'll do me some good.
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