John T


Blah blah blah.

You haven't backed it up. You said "your posts are full of Freudian slips". Then when asked to point them out, you said "They're just there". Then when asked to point them out again, "I don't need to". And so on, ad tedium.

This isn't backing something up, this is repeating yourself. In a somewhat entertainingly increasingly ranting fashion, despite your supposed espousal of calm civility. Feel free to carry on.

If you've got some criticism you can actually point to some basis for, I'm all ears. If on the other hand, you're just saying "I don't like what you said about that other dude", well, noted. But not very interesting.

Hahaha. Classic evasive posturing. You insulted someones music on a public forum. You called people morons. You insinuated people were operating on a low level of self awareness. You dropped snide comments that "some of you have some real issues". Do you deny this? And why would a thick skinned individual like yourself stoop to such a level? Could it be your ego got tweaked? You were offended? Mad? You come here not only to defend yourself but back pedal and mitigate the damge(albeit half heartedly) of your insult. Admit it. You got tweaked not just by the thread itself but by those who didn't share your view of X1. You attacked because you felt attacked. Hide and deny all you want. You know you crossed the line and I would hope at some point you actually do perform some self evaluation and at least admit to yourself in private. you've got a conscience and deep inside you know you lost the moral high ground. Be a man and regain it... apologize and in the future don't let your ego lead you down such a path. We've all done it. And we all must account for it, learn from it and become better for it.

tom1


Like most of you I have been making music for many years.
 
I have had a ton of comments like:
"it's ok"; "not bad", "I kinda like it"
 
and even a few like:
"wow, I really love that"
 
but if I ever received a critique like:
"It's absolutely appalling"
 
then I think I would have something very special

Wow I feel so much better now, Bapu tells me that all the time...

 
I'm not even sure what a Freudian slap is

 
GuitarMike, John T did post a tune over in the Songs Forum quite recently.
 
It was very good as I recall (although he didn't reply to my post).

John T

I am confident that I haven't lost the moral high ground. We'll have to agree to disagree on that.

We most certainly do.
I've taken time to try and understand where you are coming from and where it is
you think you are going and all that makes sense to me is a line from one of
my favorite groups- "fools die laughing still"- DP

Your "high ground" has the visual of a small man on a small hill yelling at the mountains
that he is king of the hill.
What you fail to grasp while trying to maintain your footing is that you cut your own throat
while waving your arms around.
You see, when one blindly or otherwise stabs at the heart of another with their words
of hate and proclaim the while that they are indeed a king of any hill of morality is
the ultimate example of a very troubled person or a simple fool.

You have this time convinced me that my first assessment of you was accurate. No
it doesn't bring me any satisfaction and I did offer this has help to you. Please read...

Many years ago my music teacher that I admired very much told me when I mentioned
that I too had become a teacher, "Mike, you know you're going to get a student that you
feel and know will never become a guitarist. You must make certain that you never tell
a student or another (musician) that you feel or think that of them. Always offer support
to them and encouragement." -Bob Brown ( and he is still teaching and I think of him everyday)
That, John T is moral high ground. I hope it helps you.

Michael

I consider Mike as good a friend as one can have given this format of communication.

That fondness has developed over a long period of time and it includes his undoubted ability and knowledge of his profession which he is prepared to share in depth with anybody prepared to show an interest in what he does.  Another factor I really like about Mike is that when he doesn't know something he doesn't pretend too and he is prepared to ask the most fundamental questions with no regard to how silly it might sound.  'Know it alls' don't extend their knowledge precisely because the vain need to appear knowledgeable keeps them in the dark.  Mike is definitely not in that camp.

Having some awareness of what Mike is trying to do musically during this period of his journey as far as I can tell is to produce honest unvarnished performances featuring the performer performing with as little or no post production polish.  This is the most courageous undertaking any of us artists can undertake.  Like many of us here Mike makes no claim to be a professional artist but he is most definitely an accomplished and sought after audio engineer.

Given this background if the critique generously given by John T was directed at the recent video clip I saw of Mike's initial steps into this area I'll re-iterate my thoughts given to the clip at the time as there was no way this production was appalling, indeed the video was indeed of the highest broadcast quality by any TV company standard.  The performance itself was backed by an excellent song choice and was delightfully direct and vunerable, my only criticism at the time was that Mike needed the confidence that would come from the familiarity of doing more of these excercises.

The only familiarity I have of John T however, is being upset fairly recently by a constant and visible need shown by him to show up and comment negatively on something Mike had previously said, to the extent it looked to me like stalking and certainly would have diminished my enjoyment of participating on the forum if it was happening to me.  At the time I felt compelled to report this behaviour to the moderators.

Those, without prejudice, are the impressions that these two individuals by their very interactions here have so far presented me with to date.

YMMV

The positive aspect of this discussion is the music. And bringing attention to Mike's music. Firstly any bad reviews only shows the lack of knowledge and also the lack of ability to listen to the music and really hear what is there.

I have had a great listen to all the music on his website and I must say that I am very impressed.  I would not mind reviewing the music in some capacity. I hope this prompts more people to make the effort to actually go to people's websites etc and have a good close listen to what they hear there.  And listen to ALL of it. I know it takes time to do this and we all have limited amounts of it I suppose. (BTW if you are listening to my music, my myspace is the better or more up to date version although it is way out of date anyway)


I think there are many great ideas and performances in 'Flowing in the Wind' I find the ideas in there interesting and inspiring. There are always interesting keyboard parts that interact with his guitar parts. I like the sparse linear drumming ideas and I am getting into that now myself. Nice chord changes in these tunes too. I like the variations in the pieces in tunes like New Orleans where the drums are interesting. Great organ synth parts and a nice solo.

In Singles, Sketches and Sounds Mike shows great versatility here. He is not afraid to cross many styles or genres. I like the fact he hears something and goes away and builds something on that idea. I like doing that too. It crosses over into heavier music, great acoustic and latin music, really love Dunkirk that is cool.

But the best part of the discussion has been the reference to Mikes great voice in that song video he produced. That is very nice and Mikes voice is a real standout here and I would like to hear way more of Mike's singing. I hope this inspires him to write songs and just sing them. I would like to hear his backing tracks with his voice. That is where I feel the Red Bay Blues project comes in. Although those tunes are nice instrumental pieces I would love to hear them as the basis for lyrics and his singing.


So if you think the music is bad I think you are very wrong and there is much to be heard in there. Production is also pretty nice actually. Sure there are some reverbed drums in there (Its OK, I LOVE reverb too!) but overall I think Mike has a very interesting production style. The guitars are always sounding good and solid.

But it has got me thinking about the music too and what I should do about my own. I agree with Jonbouy in that he has never claimed to be a professional artist. He in fact has played down his knowledge of music theory at times but I think his music tells us that he is much more aware musically that he even might say. Mike is subtle musician (and loud too) and it takes a subtle type of person to hear it.  I would love to collaborate with him myself although I am not sure how we would go about it. Our skills would marry well.

He has a lot of technical knowledge of course and we have often got into some fiery technical discussion. I just hope he still likes me after all those! But anything that gets us thinking about the music is good I reckon. It is so easy to be diverted with everything else. This discussion has mede me realise I have been spending way too much time thinking about and dealing with other peoples music. Listening to Mike's music makes you think about the real and true honesty there is within the heart of your own music. I think you can learn a lot about a person from their music.

Now hold on a second here guys ... there's another recent thread floating around where a well respected forum member criticized Mike's music, but I'm not seeing the outcry from that? He did go about it differently than John T though.

Mike ... You have a knack for pushing peoples buttons, unfortunately the wrong guy's buttons got pushed this time. Happens to all of us from time to time. ;)

John T ... You should have worded what you said differently.

For what it's worth (and it's not a lot), I've listened to some of Mike's music and I thought it was really good. Not million dollar studio quality, but someone here produce a mix that is then you can criticize another person's music with some authority. So far, the ONLY person I've heard produce a mix on this forum that comes close to what I hear when I open a store bought CD is Danny Danzi. Not saying that others aren't almost as good, but Danny and a handful of others are the only ones I would take criticism from seriously. John T was just spouting, time to move on and forget about it. :)

Now hold on a second here guys ...

Why?

I had no pre-concieved ideas of either of these fellows before I came to this forum and all I've done is recount my impressions of them since I've been here.

Do you see anything wrong with that given the subject?

You guys amaze me.

I'm speechless.

Thanks for sharing.

all the best,
mike

Bub


Now hold on a second here guys ... there's another recent thread floating around where a well respected forum member criticized Mike's music, but I'm not seeing the outcry from that? He did go about it differently than John T though. 

That's the crux of the matter Bub.
 
To me, this thead really has nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of Mike's music.
 
I won't put words in Mike's mouth, but if somebody disliked his songwriting, or his performances, or questioned his engineering skills, and stated why - I'd imagine that he'd be the first to acknowledge the criticism in the spirit it was given and take on board any suggestions offered. In fact, exactly the same as what most of us would do.
 
But I'm also pretty certain that if somebody slated your music simply as "appalling" without any subjective or technical explanation you'd be tempted to respond somehow?
 
In starting this thread, Mike simply chose a light-hearted approach in making his response.
 
 
 
 

trimph1


Yeah...that was basically all it was...light hearted.

mmmmm...I'm still waiting for some examples of JohnT's work...

 
Wow, such cynicism
 
I've no doubt John T will post some music....
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
... might not be his own though
 
 

I don't have anything on-line. So let's cut to the chase and assume that I am completely incompetent, and that I make absolutely the worst, most amateur music of anyone on the forums.

I do get paid to make it, but that, of course, doesn't necessarily mean very much. There's plenty of crap music getting paid for, I'll happily grant that, and mine might well be some of it.

So, I suck. What now?

John T


So, I suck. What now?

Get better?

Double post