Some ponderings...

Can “pondering” be pluralized? Any grammar Nazis out there that want to correct me? Shit, I’m digressing before I’ve even started pondering.

Anyhow… The previous discussion came to mind because I have undertaken a rather extensive Spring Cleaning fiesta. I rented a U-Haul, and backed it up to my studio door, and basically threw away anything I haven’t touched in more than, say, a year. This turned out to be quite a bit of shit, including a round dozen computers (which nicely documented the history of Apple), a whole fuckton of half-finished DIY projects of one form or another, and a bunch of other shit I didn’t need.

I could have probably sold a fair portion of what I recycled on the ’bay, or just kept it, but that wasn’t really the point. My thinking was that every time I go out to my studio to record, I end up dicking with something that hasn’t anything to do with what I intended. On top of this, I could barely turn around in there for all the shit that was piled on top of other shit. I have a tendency to make sudden turns and stops when I see a sign pronouncing “Yard Sale,” much to the dismay of my wife, and as a result, I’ve nickled and dimed myself in to a corner.

So, it was time to clear out. And that’s that.

But… I seem to all the sudden find myself looking gift horses in the mouth. Someone just offered me, essentially free, a particular incredibly rare piece of kit I’ve been looking for forever. Now, I know that this thing will be fun for like 15 minutes, then it will sit there collecting dust. So I turned him down. Then I find something on eBay, with a BIN well within my target price, that I’ve also been looking for forever. Then, a store I buy a lot of gear at is having a monster sale. The list goes on.

Ultimately, my point is this: the gearlust, it can get away from you. Lord knows I have 10 times the shit I need to actually make the kinds of music I make. (In actual fact, for most of it, all I need is a computer, a single mic pre, and a convertor.) But I find myself eyeballing things I know I don’t need, because if I only had that one other thing, it would all fall in to place. That’s how a keyboardist ends up with 11 guitars.

Adam and I have an ongoing discussion that has lasted nigh on four years, wherein we have decided that there’s people that collect gear, and people that use gear, and those people are generally not the same people. There ain’t nothing wrong with that, but I am of the considered opinion that unless a particular form of music requires a particular piece of kit (e.g. 303 for acid house) then you can generally make do without all the fuss. This obviously goes entirely against the general drift of this website, but like I said, I’ve just been having some ponderings…