A Cocky Oasis Reminded Me that Art Takes Time
But I'm still grappling with sellout syndrome and how far I'm willing to go
I think a lot of people are tired of the internet. Or maybe the grind of it all. Or the hustle. I won’t rehash my last newsletter but I wrote it a few days before Vox published an article about everyone being a sellout. It’s a good read and sums up some of the inner turmoil I’ve experienced trying to build a new photographer identity (or maybe reinvigorate a dormant identity) while simultaneously keeping my good capitalist identity. I got kids to feed, ya’ll.
It makes me wonder what the function of this newsletter is for the future. Is it a home for ideas and photography or a home to help sell ideas and photography? I honestly don’t know. What I don’t want it to be is a chore for readers – another future digital regret. I can’t express gratefulness in a way you can feel, but I do know you could be somewhere else, experiencing things, making things, or just daydreaming, instead of reading this slop.
But I have a confession: it’s been 37 days since I’ve been on social media and I kind of miss it. I don’t miss the endless doomscrolling and brain-numbingness of it all. That part fucking sucks. I do miss sharing work, seeing what my friends are doing, and being part of something larger than my office and my daycare commutes. I just don’t know if I can go over my participation being at the mercy of advertisers and twats like Mark Zuckerberg.
I’ve been solo with my kids for the last seven days and have spent evenings trying to “catch up” on my routine studies, like perusing the New Yorker for new essays about modern photographers I’ve never heard about or YouTube to discover photographers and what guides their work. I spent an hour the other day watching Daniel Arnold talk about his addiction to photography and his sense of indifference to the fame he’s achieved. It’s a mind-bending idea to think of photography as an addiction. There’s no magic when I think about photography having control over me. But am I addicted? Why else would I neglect 100 other things to photograph trashcans and people and dogs walking with stuff in their mouths? The obvious answer is I think it’s interesting. I also have expensive cameras and my wife would wonder why I don’t use them. Maybe that’s the first reason. Switch the order. Or maybe because I find that in my lonesome imposter syndrome world, I think I have a good perspective on aesthetics and culture, and the type of stuff that makes us feel good, and if I don’t curate “life’s wonderful things” then all that’s left is imposter syndrome.
I’ve been thinking about how my ambition has never wavered but my ability to sell it to others has never been sharp. I’m not shy about grinding the shit out, but commanding any sort of attention has never been my strong suit. I think of silly things like how I was never popular in elementary or high school, and it took me a long time to even get comfortable in my skin. I’m still not even that comfortable. And some of that fuels what I’m interested in – thinking about the unnoticed, the underdog of things.
The projects I’m working on right now simply have to do with documenting Seattle the way every photographer I follow right now documents New York City or Los Angeles. It’s mainly New York City. Humans are fucking obsessed with that place, aren’t they? But can’t “interesting” thrive elsewhere, like in the alleyways of what was once a grungy backdrop to subculture but is now Jeff Bezos’ empire? I think so. It can be interesting. And it has to be because I live here and there’s no way we’re moving with 7% interest rates. It also has to be because we need underdog cities to show the other cities that shit happens elsewhere. If we don’t, monopolizing of what’s aesthetically and culturally relevant gets relegated to places that will always be cool and evolving and thriving, but out of reach for most people. The zeitgeist shouldn’t be monopolized. It can’t be.
But overwhelmingly I keep feeling the steady thing I’ve been feeling for more than a decade: I’m never going to catch up to any of the ambitious things I want to do. It’s impossible. And although I’m nowhere near saying “and that’s ok”, I know it will be ok. But right now, I can’t gather myself to conform to the idea that I’ll see less than 1% of anything on this earth and probably just be telling people I was a corporate marketer for most of my prime years. Did your face just convulse? Because mine did. And what I want to do in that prime, what I do pay attention to, is gasoline stations with street graffiti barred from intruders and trespassers.
When the world heard Liam Gallagher sing “Wonderwall” for the first time, I look back and try to imagine that we discovered a new dimension in our universe. 30 years after one of the most iconic and blistering bands that has ever existed, their songs give us an idea of what complete and unabashed passion and artistry can look like.
I watched Oasis: Supersonic recently, the 2016 documentary about the rapid ascent of probably the biggest asshole band with the most wonderful melodies, and I couldn’t help but reminisce about an era that’s long gone and never coming back. I don’t think I stopped smiling throughout the viewing, laughing at the antics of such a dated era of rock ‘n roll (I think they would have been canceled before they even started), but also saddened by how fleeting and beautiful art is.
I never really knew the story of Noel and Liam, the middle and youngest of three boys, who led a fairly competitive and tense relationship throughout their lives, even to this day. If you don’t know, they don’t talk to each other, and their meteoric ascent and fall with Oasis is the stuff of sibling rivalry legend and music industry awe. Because in the early 90s, the brothers were, by all accounts, apples, and oranges when it came to similarities, although they both carried with them a ferocious obsession to make art. In 1991, Liam joined a band and renamed them “Oasis.” After their first gig in Manchester, Noel happened to be a roadie for another band and heard his brother’s new project and was impressed. And as he put it, “How the fuck does he have a band?” Flabbergasted by the idea that his little brother had a band that was good, Liam persuaded Noel to join his little post-punk Brit-pop chaos train. In the documentary, the scenes move from raw footage of behind-the-scenes images of the brothers, their friends, the band, and the mischief they constantly dabbled in. But one somewhat comforting factor is when Noel, talking about finally taking the bait to join Liam in his band, said that it took almost two years for the band to do anything recognizable to actual progress. There were gigs, but as he states in the doc, no one would even write that they were rubbish. There wasn’t a single paragraph in any review in any publication. It’s like no one cared.
For two years, Oasis was a fart in the wind. And then the infamous King Tut’s Wah Wah Club show in Glasgow, and the rest is history.
There is no deliberation to the argument that the Gallaghers overall might be the most egotistical brilliance in music, but throughout the documentary, they are both overwhelmingly submitted to the idea that none of their fame, their music, or their rise happens without the fans. And that the relationship between their music and the people who loved it, took a lot of time, and a lot of luck, and continued time and luck and work. They still screamed from stages everywhere that they were the greatest band on earth; their cockiness was a signature of their mythmaking. But their community of revelers was their draw. They made music for people. They made art for us. The potential inertia of their music is fueled to energetic heights by a society that understands the idea of their melodies. People wanted to feel, and Oasis gave them something to sink their teeth into. I’m still one of those people and I am reminded that all of this shit takes time.
What I’m reading
There’s a guy in New York City trying to eat every country’s cuisine without leaving the boroughs. I love stuff like this. https://apple.news/A4RH_ysulTe2_bZ-SyjVQ2A
The Smile, Radiohead’s side project, has a new album and yes I bought the blue vinyl and it’s so good. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/the-smile-wall-of-eyes-review-1234952183/
I’ve recently rediscovered the work of Saul Leiter. I find his work to be so delicate, but a little clumsy, in an intentional way. https://www.saulleiterfoundation.org/color
Ya’ll, this Tracy Chapman live performance at the Grammy’s was beautiful. The fans (fellow artists and probably the most amazing musicians on earth), the vibe, the perfection. She deserved that standing ovation from her peers. Amazing stuff. https://www.grammy.com/videos/tracy-chapman-luke-combs-fast-car-2024-grammys-performance-66th-annual-grammy-awards
Beth Gibbons from Portishead is coming out with her first solo album!
What are you reading? What are you listening to? What are you eating?
Happy Sunday.
Of all the addictions out there, photography doesn’t seem so bad. I’m curious about whether you have an audience in mind when you take photos and if that audience changes when you stop posting on Instagram. One of the reasons I’m not posting photos of Oaxaca is that I don’t want to “see” the city from the perspective of my online friends. At least not yet.
Good looking on that Radiohead album! The algorithm brought me a couple of those tracks and I’m embarrassed that I didn’t realize it was them. Like most Radiohead albums, I feel like it’s got some great hits and some misses.