Daniel Waters, the screenwriter for the brilliant 80s satire, Heathers, once said, “My goal when writing my screenplay—as should be the goal of every screenwriter—was to make the greatest movie NEVER made.”
I feel the same way about music. I’m far more interested in doing things that I find interesting than in being commercial or even culturally relevant. That’s why with my solo music project, Godcrotch, I’m trying to do something different every time I play out, and generally the more bizarre or unexpected, the better. Things like an all-ukulele set of metal covers or a one-man blues act or a one-man hip hop act. I have nothing against commercial bands or music, but right now, I’m mostly doing this to amuse myself, so why not go all the way with it?
As a perfect example of that, for a recent gig at Tom Grainey’s Basement in Boise, I got my friend Mike Lee, The Religious Antagonist, to join for me a live-looped atheist gangsta rap we put together just before the show.
I can’t say whether anyone else will like it or not—the guy who sang a song about Jesus right before I played certainly didn’t—but it tickles me pink. Especially the line: “Ain’t no virgins for you up in heaven, just some underage ‘tang down at 7/11.”
Whether I’ll play it again or record it, who knows. But someone did catch it on video, so at least that moment will live on.
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