The Kintners Music

The Horse’s Mouth is getting near..

We are putting issue number two together. It is hard work, but not that hard. We end up spending a lot of time working on something together doing these types of deals. I like that a lot. I like that Keri likes that too.

I have had an issue with just about every program over-correcting and being a jackass. It started with voice-to-text, and now those kinds of errors are in art programs, DAWs, and anything else I use. I hate computing lately. I used to be a big fan. But it isn’t the same. Sad for those of us who liked it before it guessed what you wanted, or made you guess from menus. All this to say, I am hand-coloring the art.

Our magazine looks homemade anyway, not like I can detract from that with actually coloring. Besides, I love the artwork of Chris Triggs, over in Wales. I love the artist too. I’m excited to hand-color his work. I just have to find some table space.

Over in YouTube land…

I am putting thumbnail pics on the YouTube. If anyone is curious, I read a whole lot of marketing crap about increasing traffic and the most non-harmful thing you can do without breaking any rules, and get the most results, thumbnails. Weird but ok, world.

Dino’s Stash

The staff of the magazine came together again. We had Marc Schuster on drums. We had John from Voodoo Planet on guitar. We had Dino DiMuro “himself” doing sound effects which he’s brilliant at. Keri came in and did a great defense of lip hair. I show a bounce on YouTube, but that is before final tweaking and the mastering of bkbirge. As soon as the final is done, I will put in the treasure chest.

Maybe you’d like an updated link list?

Linktree for magazine, (treasure chest, digital issue, contacts and staff, subscribing, comments, and more!)

Youtube

Subvert Kintners

Subvert Djembe Funk

Email: thekintnersmusic@gmail.com

After the magazine goes out, I’ll be hard at work on The Kintner Double Album. I am excited about the new tools, and some old ones. I am most excited for the new songs. Can’t wait.

Kelly Kintner

What’s in a spelling?

I do not spell well. I don’t use a lot of fancy tools for writing because I don’t like them and am afraid I won’t sound like me. Sometimes errors slip out. Like several times a day, lol.

To spell a word wrong and absolutely zero folks in my life notice.

A year ago I made a video called “Citrus Fruit” in which “citrus” is misspelled twice. I just noticed it as I reposted it to my new YouTube. The last place that video was posted, saw a little traffic. Not much, but certainly some friends. I say friends, but if they can’t even tell me I misspelled a word for several months, maybe I don’t know who they are.

What is an “online friend?” Have I been mistaken?

I am not knocking anyone, I am being serious. Maybe I just think all these online people are friends. Maybe they don’t even think that. Who could blame them in that case for not helping me at least that much? But if they are my friends, and it is the norm to let friends go on like that without a courtesy nod towards spelling, what kind of friends are they?

Gorillas would have caught it, (if they were online and could spell).

Why do you have friends? Me? I feel fortified somewhat with a group or club. I feel like if I maintain friends, then someone is in my life who says “what’s up?” Much like animals checking each other for ticks, I think this friendship stuff has vitality purposes. In fact, much of my vitality resides wanting to do things with friends. These are folks who are more than capable of correcting my spelling.

What video we talking about?

There is also the possibility that no one I know actually saw video. Youtube says how many, but not who. Even then, some stranger is likely to whip out, “nice spelling, moron,” or whatever strangers say.

I slept that day.

And lastly, what if no one noticed? I didn’t. It is possible no one pointed it out because no one noticed it. I guess this means nothing in that case. But over 200 folks allegedly saw it when it was up last. I think that’s fun. Here is the new version, spelled correctly, at least I hope.

Citrus Fruit, Djembe Funk Video

Kelly Kintner

Good morning!

Good morning! Just a quick note to let you know I’ve started a YouTube channel. There are six videos up as I write this. Some are new, and a few are from the last time I had a channel. Either way, the oldest stuff on there goes back about a year, so it’s all relatively recent.

I’m allergic to most modern mixing.

What I hope to do with this channel is help folks like me bridge the gap between not wanting to learn any more software and still wanting to learn more about music.

I like it the hard way. (But it is actually easier for folks like me.)

Tape DAWs help with that immensely. But so does mic placement. Using the right tools, rather than simply the brand names you like, helps too. I can verify that. Learning creative writing exercises for lyrics instead of relying on ChatGPT helps. It also gives me a way to sort things out in my head and improve my mood. Win/win.

I want more of this in my life.

There are so many things you can do to improve a recording before you ever hit the record button. Software companies might beg to differ, but you can engineer a surprising amount of modern mixing right out of the process from the beginning.

I’m into that.

Does it sound good before you mix it? What if it did?

For about a year now, I’ve been fascinated with the idea of creating the sound I want in the real world and then capturing it well. The goal is to have something that already sounds the way I want it to before mixing even begins.

It takes longer. It presents its own challenges. But somehow, it’s more fun.

I don’t enjoy trying to turn something from a software menu into the sound I have in my head. That’s just me. I’m much more interested in hearing something in my head first and then chasing it down in the real world.

Legos: Great toys, but also toys.

Otherwise, I feel like I’m playing with Legos. The blocks they give me are fine. Legos are cool and all, but when it comes to music, I need something more organic and a little less stiff.

Come join me.

I’m at a really fun point in my journey with songwriting and production, and I’d love for you to visit.

If subscribing is your thing, please do!

I’ll be adding tutorials, livestreams, conversations about songwriting and music, music videos, editorials on music and entertainment, protest music, and even an indie countdown.

There’s plenty more to come.

Join up, hang out, and make yourself at home. You’re invited!

Kelly Kintner

The Horses Mouth

The Kintners

Djembe Funk

It isn’t about what I can do, it’s about what I want to do.

I have run across folks recently who swear on a brand of DAW and have told me I am being silly about not liking Reaper. One guy even told me, “I am a boomer, if I can do it, anyone can.” (Sorry boomers out there, he said it… although he did say it in typical boomer fashion, I must say. lol.)

Understand when someone doesn’t like a product, it doesn’t mean they can’t use it. I have been on computer DAWs since 2002 (Cool Edit Pro 2.0) and have seen the decline of software design over the last 20 years. It isn’t because I don’t like technology that I don’t find Reaper attractive, it’s because I have been a technology fanboy a long time. And it sucks now. I welcome tech that makes sense, but that is not what we got now. Also, GenX. Even a young one, at that. 

In a previous life…

Many folks don’t know or remember that I started writing about video games in the late 90’s. I was on some decent sites. Even got paid a couple of times. I used to say, “I am passionate about video games.” That cracks me up, these days. I don’t play games anymore. I’ve tried a couple out. I am not opposed to them. But they suck now. If only they had a game with crafting in it…

A question for Google:

I asked Google, “Why does software suck so bad compared to the 2010’s?”

The litany of possible reasons is spectacular. Thanks, Google. 

If it sucks so bad, I’m not using it.

So me and Google and friends, folks I meet in forums, and even boomers think software sucks. It’s not reliable. Voice to text isn’t even as good as it used to be. And video games are some kind of commitment I get no joy in. As someone who’s been at this nearly thirty years, I feel very much like a fish out of water. And I like this stuff. If I didn’t like it, I’d be looking at desert shanty towns for a new location. Might anyway.

Learn the craft, not the software.

I have gotten better at technique, musical knowledge, performing, editing, recording, writing lyrics, arrangement, even promotion, and album art. During the time I was getting better, the software got a lot worse. I find my only way to be “okay” with that is to do it myself. I don’t need the same software I used to. I still use some, but it has me figured out, at least today. I am very fortunate I learned music this whole time, not software. And that’s kinda’ my point.

Learning a DAW is fine. We need those folks. But that is not learning music. It is learning software. If that floats your boat, great! But I don’t want to learn software for fun. I like making noise. Also, I learned Logic Pro pretty well, and when they integrated silly features that started around update 12.0, I dropped them like an STD. It was no longer the aesthetic or tool set I was looking for. But they didn’t offer to compensate me anything for learning their DAW and turning my friends on to it. They never said thanks for sharing on the internet and the hours you spend on this thing. Learning software is a ripoff. If it doesn’t change hands, it will update. They even change the payment methods! Video game memories haunting me now. 

The plague hitting home musicians right now. I daresay, a plague on the indie scene as a whole.

We talk about the bedroom musician sometimes and one of those components is usually software. Depending on which DAW they use and their level of proficiency, I am often able to tell which DAW they’re using. I have tried many. I am not looking for an answer in software anymore. I know it is going to be hard. I know it will have proprietary terms I will always be translating in my head to the musical ones. I know folks stare so hard at the waves, graphs, meters, lights, that they can’t hear the music playing through their ears. They see it somehow and call it good. Me, I am folks. We all know that we have a hard time reading texts while talking to someone over a meal. But for some reason, folks seem to prefer mixing that way. These kinds of obstacles hinder the bedroom musician like a plague on the whole scene. 

They probably won’t change.

The software industry is pretty consistent. They want more and more  tech,more subscriptions, more time on the computer, more processing, more AI, more money. The whole time I have known them, even writing in their magazines, that has been their behavior. I don’t see them any differently today. And I see them.

I refuse now.

I don’t want to learn any more of their bullshit. I feel tired and burnt out, and also happy that I have figured out a way to record and distribute music with minimally invasive software that has a nice low learning curve. There are no menus in the DAW I am using now, TAPE 24. I hear what I want in my head, I go after it. I am not trying to find the closest thing on a huge list. I am much happier that way. 

If you want to make changes, do it. I did it in phases. It is better if you like writing music you like.

I think other folks are like me, too. If you are scared of making changes, I did it in phases. They often overlapped. I might be quitting one DAW, finishing up projects, opening new ones on a different one. I might have leaned on the iPad too much at first when I got rid of my cell phone. But now that I am able to work with a smile on my face in the music room, I don’t think about it much. I have met folks in forums who say “You cannot be a musician these days without social media.” This is false. Not only do I not have a social media, tons of musicians I work with don’t have one either. No time. I got a Christmas song and a collaboration still scheduled for today. Don’t sell yourself short when you give yourself additional time and fewer distractions. With me, music happened.

Learn to use your brain for yourself, not an IP.

The main thing, back to the title of this one, be careful what you learn out there. Very few people are beating down your door trying to teach you anything, except software companies. They are happy to let you work for them at your job or even for free in your bedroom studio. They are happy to teach you loads of jargon and even a philosophical approach to picking from menus and being observed. I promise, it is more fun to learn without inviting those guys over. Good luck.

Kelly Kintner, Producer, Songwriter

Stations!

I like having various projects at various stages. I have to be in a mixing mood to enjoy it; for example, otherwise it hurts my brain. So I have a lot of projects going on at the moment, and it is quite nice. Whatever I feel like doing, I just do that. It makes headway. If you are bipolar and haven’t tried this method of working unsupervised, it has been working for me for a good bit. I hope you get relief and accomplishment.

The Double Double Album.

The Kintners album “Brand Name Believers,” is taking a little longer due to me learning new mixing stuff. I am not gifted at that sort of thing at all. I am teaching myself, I’m an okay teacher if I ain’t the student. lol. The Reaper DAW is more than I could ever want in mixing software, that’s not a bonus for me. It’s spending a lot of time learning not music, not concepts, not technique, it’s learning software. Fortunately just this morning, I might have gotten some help there. Feeling very positive about it.

TAPE 24 DAW came out this morning.  I use the TAPE 16 by the same person a lot. I will do the album on TAPE 24, ditching Reaper, in a heartbeat, as it is similar to TAPE 16 with needed additional features. The TAPE 24 DAW and TAPE 16 DAWs are my speed. I made a video so you can see me pressing things and hear my song going. Here. 

I’ve written a lot for this album so far about brands, fascists, and good people. I think it is a happy album so far. I did not expect that. We usually have a melancholy vibe, and there’s still plenty of that. But the most recent material is a very happy, “get back to work fighting nazis” vibe. I have a song on here about the joy in writing, even to yourself. To me, that’s Antifa. I am very excited to share it. But it is still a ton of work away. We will get there. Marc Schuster on drums, John Gilbert on lead guitar, me, and Keri – the band for all 20 songs. It has been a hoot. And that isn’t even counting the 20-song live-set accompaniment disc.

Return to the countdown.

I am working on a livestream. Early phases. I enjoyed it before. I feel like I can do it even cooler now. Work in progress, but definitely working on it. 

The Horses Mouth.

The Horses Mouth articles and art are in. Mixing the song, but again, taking me a bit. There’s a lot of Halloween in this issue. I am glad for that. Of all the holidays, I like Halloween the best, especially in Latin America. I am lying if I say I am not shaken with revelations about the US Mail this week. But this issue is a go. Sharmi Surianarain is a name that hopefully is known in many households. Her music is great, and her interview is essentially how to have a blast in print. Check out her album, Witness. I have listened to it a bunch. I will listen to it a bunch more. It makes me very happy to talk about people like her. She is awesome.

Actually, my main deal.

I am on random tracks out there recently, but it’s hard for me to remember which. I play on any track I find, get sent, can get, hunt down, etc. I like playing on tracks. I think playing randomly on folks’ tracks always gives me things to learn for my own music. I am down for that. Google how many tracks I am on, let me know if it gives you a number. It doesn’t give me one, even though there has to be, right? I like it all, if you need a hand. I have played fretless bass on hip-hop. Played funk, punk, points in between. I have a country and western arsenal including things like alt-folk, southern gothic, waltzes, Americana, and the like. If you hear me in one of your creations, don’t hesitate to ask. Happy to be of service. thekintnersmusic@gmail.com.

It is a very busy time. Just saying that cheers me up.

Kelly Kintner

Surely the world isn’t crazy..

15% of the whole planet is what Google says the average is of folks living with a mental disorder. What they don’t say is things like thinking the South seceded for States’ Rights is crazy. Not to mention, imagine the world view for a second of someone who thinks slaves were a minor issue, aren’t they crazy? I don’t think Google is including them.

What about the boycott folks?

I tend not to use a company when I learn what evil shits they are, I don’t have any hopes of putting them out of business in a fascist regime, but it makes me feel bad to see their name in my house and know what they do. So I try not to feel bad. The best I can hope for, but if I was a boycotter…

These poor saps get on social media putting other folks on their side down for trying to get the cheapest brand. They may not even realize they themselves have other brands in the office, kitchen, garage that do worse than what they’re preaching about. But their war isn’t for environment, equality, or justice. These folks fight for narrative. They have to. Because if you realize how ludicrous it is to hope a company goes under from a boycott, you realize we have been misled on that. Some companies even bounce back better! The gap in income means they have a lot more money now. We have less. We don’t have leverage in that situation anymore. Make them unpopular, sure, but bitching out other folks online for eating at the wrong chicken shack? Are you nuts? What if you need those folks? Why did you lose them? A sandwich? What billionaire did that hurt?

The US Mail micro targets, as well as all the campaigns online too.

“Google, tell me about micro targeting and the US Mail.”

Paxton Talarico mail

I looked this up after getting Talarico and Paxton for senator flyers, 4 in one day. Seemed too dumb to be an accident. It wasn’t. It was supremely individualized targeting from both parties. I do not have a phone. I use email on an iPad, talk on a forum site sometimes. This blog. Some music. No social media. So they turned to mail! lol.

Mail has a lot to offer. They will even deliver it to houses with no internet. They can make the thing look official on fancy paper, convincing. Authenticity is easier to feel when you can hold it. Plus, unless you throw it away, it is always lying around, occupying some space in your brain. Could be what it’s after. How in the hell do we know? It’s not like we can trust anyone who sends us anything.

I found a website in researching these handouts from these Texas candidates, and I found some interesting things. The website is called paidforby.info. On this tool, you can scan your flyers, leaflets, campaign ads, and it will tell you about the money behind it. This is refreshing to someone like me who was taught the now-forgotten phrase, “follow the money” in school. On a Paxton flyer, I noticed they get 20 million (state politics, mind you) from Elon Musk, and the next “donor” is at 500 bucks or so. I am anxious to learn why these things are so silly. I bet I won’t like it, but I am anxious to learn it.

With mental illness tho..

My point with mental illness is we have to stop calling being tricked or brainwashed mentally ill if we aren’t going to call the predatory profiteers mentally ill too. That’s pretty much the whole world, thanks, Google.

Maybe check yourself.

I am not ill for thinking folks want to watch me and observe me to cater specific messages to me. I am not ill for trying to aggregate news sources with different brands and locations to try to get a clearer picture. I am not ill for wanting to use my own mind and judgement on art projects. I am not wrong to get my feelings hurt when folks no longer wish to speak to me. I am not crazy because I don’t want social media informing my view on what is outside my front door; I’ll just open it. I am not wrong to not want to talk to robots. I am not crazy to be extremely suspicious and cautious in a fascist regime. I got more, but you get the idea.

I get called crazy a lot. But it is not because I am a bipolar patient on meds. Or, it may be. I value my mind and mood these days, more than ever. I get ownership in that by shutting out as many robots as possible. I can call it “mine” for one thing. I can feel actually proud when I make stuff and have memories of making it. I am able to build muscle memory with rehearsal and practicing. All this is therapeutic. It helps my mind and body get along. What I am after with music! AI robs me of that.

So while I may technically be the crazy one, all the crazy shit I do is helping me not be crazy.

Kelly Kintner

The Horses Mouth

The Kintners

Djembe Funk

The hour after thought:

Our protest tune with bkbirge on old school equipment in an analog studio called “Pill Party” is a sad fiesta. I will put it here. A good song for this entry. “Going in circles, we never make it anywhere” :

Video

Bandcamp

Business, Brandnames, Beliefs

I am very fed up with mainstream anything. Liberal punditry makes me ditch the word “liberal” even though I have loved it for years. I get Heather Cox Richardson’s articles sent to me from Substack, X, YouTube, META, and it brings me down. She strikes me as an intelligent, caring person. But that is merely her demeanor. OR, she just doesn’t know that her bringing thousands of paying Dems and liberals to corporations like TikTok makes CEOs worldwide chuckle. The dollar bills she represents to them are much more valuable than anything she says. She works for them. But here I am supposed to take her liberal commentary seriously. She knows this, I think. She is smart, not saying she’s dumb. But she advertises the enemy businesses.

State and Corporate

Fascism, as we know, is a marriage of state and corporate. I think even though we know this saying, many of us have not “gone there” in our imagination. It is vital to realize that this is the Corporate United States we all wanted and dreamed of. Along with billionaires and trillionaires, we get not knowing who folks work for. Because government and corporate are so mixed, senators, the president, anyone could be signing off on legislation for a seat on the board or some stocks. That’s where we live now.

I’ll just list a few popular examples of folks and institutions I don’t know about:

Cory Booker— his industrial military complex ties in NJ and performative anger. After his big ole’ speech, he did not go to work; he opted for a book tour. He voted for Trump’s cabinet, he worked with Ted Cruz. I am not saying working with Republicans is bad; it is what you are there for. But in line with this other stuff, Ted Cruz doesn’t help.

Hakeem Jeffries betrayed all Americans and Democrats by going against Medicare for all. Why would he do that? Insurance companies, maybe?

Rachel Maddow used to be a favorite of mine. But now I find her to be pure speculative performance. I don’t know if she changed, or if this is my change, both. But she is amazing at making you think what she’s saying is real; most of the time it isn’t.

Anyone using X or Substack, META, I know of. These kinds of liberals anger the snot out of me. They think their words mean more than the thousands of paying customers they bring to corporations that bought the US government. Everyone laughs, but them. If they all got together and made an ethical one, problem solved, and I bet it would be a hit. But they are leeches to corporate power. Not very “strong”, in my book.

Billionaires – I used to think there were good ones and bad ones. I was wrong. Even if they vote Democrat, the title of “billionaire” is the greatest error our society has made that I can think of, but stick around! We might be close to topping that. They’re all bad, every single one. They do not have to act badly to be bad. They can just have too much, own too much, boss too much…and be bad.

The Police With Fascism, comes a mob of angry men. They work for the government. They do not care about right or wrong, legality, or propriety. They want as many heads in the van as they can muster. We sell these folks to prisons, prisons get paid per head, even in other countries like El Salvador. This is an industry. Death is an industry. This is my suspicion, we will only see these angry white boys more and more the further away from popularity Trump slips. We might not see it on the news though, stay “woke.” haha. The police was invented to catch slaves, they’re just returning to their roots.

Schools – Here in Texas, if you are a girl, you might wind up high on Jesus and knocked up before finishing high school. At one time, when I saw a news report about our town here, we had more pregnant teens than staff in the whole ISD. I think this area is treacherous for young women. But what about the men? Young men are impressionable too, I was. What if there aren’t folks to show young men about being good young men? I think that’s a bad place for both boys and girls. But, the corporations get a good workforce out of that pool.

Elections. I don’t know what happened with Kamala Harris. I still can’t figure it out. She acted very weird. She had a template with how to talk to Trump from Rachel Scott that all she had to do was copy. She acted out of place, like she was lying and caught off guard. She said weird, inappropriate stuff about her gun. She was a great prosecutor. What happened? Yet when I brought this up with fellow Democrats, I got very hostile treatment and “shut up, vote blue.” I was also called by Democrats, “boomer, fat ass, privileged, on and on.” As long as elections are like this, I don’t see how reason wins. It isn’t even on the menu. This is when I no longer called myself a Democrat, by the way. 2024. I didn’t like Kamala. I didn’t like Democrats. Guess I am not a Democrat anymore.

The thing about fascists..

This is the important part of fascism everyone needs to know. Brands and government are the same. If you are attached to a brand of clothing, electronics, politics, food, vehicle, website, any software, tools, anything, consider the situation fluid. Your brand could be killing folks in the desert, deporting them there, closing homeless shelters, starving kids; you just don’t know.

Make a profile!

When you make a public profile on a brand-name site, you are advertising for that site, even if you don’t think you are. They do, and they got the money. There is a saying in Silicon Valley that goes, “If you aren’t purchasing the product, you are the product.” What do you think that means? I will tell you, you are a tool for them to deliver data to and harvest from, and you advertise to your circle their service. Of course, it doesn’t cost a thing. It’s like thousands of dollars worth of work you give them. They’ll let you have a log in for that.

Kelly Kintner

I like to email conversation. If you think we’d enjoy talking to each other, thekintnersmusic@gmail.com .. Thanks for reaching out.

When you drink alone a lot, then you drink around people.

Most of us have been to parties and witnessed folks getting out of hand. People can become so inebriated they lose their place in a crowd. They lack the sober judgment required for fitting in. I’ve been this person. I wouldn’t say awareness was my strong suit at the time. But that’s over now. It has been for over a decade.

Being aware also means knowing your place.

Through a lot of time in good mental places, I’ve come to realize I need to be aware of who I am, what I like doing, how I like contributing, even my talents and skills. Here’s the kicker, it isn’t even for me. It’s for you. It’s for anyone. It’s to help. Without that awareness, I don’t think much “helping” happens.

If you know your place, you make it easy for others to find you.

One of the things that makes Eli Whitney‘s cotton gin so pivotal is not just the parts that could be replaced easily. There was also one single operator at one station turning a crank. They knew one thing. And they did it a whole bunch of times. Regardless of their background or education, if they learned that one thing, they made a hand. In the factory of the world, there are many stations to choose from. In order to make a hand, not only do you need to know just one thing, folks need to know you know it so they steer the conveyor your way. If you don’t know your place, they won’t either.

You contribute, regardless of what you do. It’s not always good, not always bad. But it is your contribution.

I come across people all the time in music who feel very solo in this life. I’ve even worked with other songwriters who have expressed to me how alone everyone seems to be. We’ve talked about folks seeming to prefer loneliness. Everyone gets their own choices. But I am going to bet if you have a pulse, you have a purpose. I’ve experienced many points in my life when I felt I had no purpose. I don’t think that goes away permanently. But I do think it’s irresponsible to swim in it too long barring mental health issues, of course. I think everyone has a station. Everyone knows something that helps everyone. Every point of view is valuable in helping me determine my point of view. Did you know you had that much purpose? You are boots on the ground for someone else!

Nature made musicians, ever think of that? Why?

Whatever cosmic natural plan that gives us talent did not imbue our DNA with our inclinations so we would be a happy person. Nature does not work that way. Nature doesn’t care about happiness. It cares about survival. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out that we need talents to survive as a species, according to nature. They are indeed gifts to get us out the door. So if you think you don’t have a purpose, I’d start with talents. That’s literally nature calling, hard to go wrong with answering that one.

The mindset of contributing.

It is hard to dip into a mindset of contribution. That is because many of us make it difficult to see ourselves and what we can do. I mentioned a while back that I was a manager at a major hardware store, Lowe’s, in my early 20s. The folks that quit under me were most likely the ones we didn’t train well. Lowe’s picked up on it. One of my courses said “Training is the number one prevention of Turnover.” I still think about that all these years later. If I want to feel good at a job, I’m likely going to need training. This is me practicing at the tasks, sure. But it is also in receiving mentorship, which I have been lucky to get from a host of collaborators in the music world. I would have never looked to learn from fellow indies without Lowe’s. Many academic programs are on top of this. Mentorship in music is quintessential to me doing music at all. I would have quit without some form of mentorship many times. It is hard. It is daunting. To hell with it if no one helps me and I’m alone with my nose in a book forever.., this is how I feel sometimes. Music is a vast library as old as time. It’s not wrong to ask a librarian to point you in the right direction. Believe it or not, it helps the mentor too, back to that purpose thing. It is powerful. Survival is a very strong instinct for many folks. Both life and legacy, survival is paramount. The world’s biggest companies know this, you should too. You are not wrong for asking a musician to teach you music. You are not wrong to say yes when folks ask too.

What are you here for?

Your job as an animal in this world involves learning what you are good at, then sharing it. That’s nature. Lions know this. Penguins know this. Humans get a little iffy. Nature has a design. It isn’t always pleasant, but it lives on, still, despite us.. (for however long). I think that should be considered.

Kelly Kintner

The Horses Mouth

The Kintners

Djembe Funk

What is modesty for?

I have felt for a long time that certain kinds of modesty are designed to pin people down rather than spare anyone a headache. I think there are a ton of musicians in this category. If I interview a guitarist and they are ranked 7th in the world by a reputable magazine, as did happen, I want to soak up as much as I can.  I was very lucky he was up to it. However, most musicians have a modest demeanor that I have interviewed. Even though a magazine or website has sent me to interview them about their new album, they may not even feel like it is very important. I don’t know what comes naturally, or what is taught. But many forms of modesty are music killers.

Are you telling the truth, for one thing?

First off, it is usually dishonest. First clue. You can know in your mind you made a vibey tune, but if you say you made a vibey tune and how you feel about it, you turn folks off. I have known since I was a boy that folks do not want you to feel proud of something you do yourself that works. Even as an adult, friends don’t want it. Family won’t acknowledge it. I feel it is because we give someone complexity and an artistic journey if we like their stuff. Right now, it is tough to give away anything. It is also difficult to take on new complexity, like learning and growth in someone you have known forever. Friends are a poor sell to begin with, though, if you can’t be honest with them. This was a very hard spot for me until I committed to more honesty in my life, for mainly other reasons. This one was like splatter damage.

I was literally pinned down by not looking at who I am realistically and honestly.

We pin young musicians down a lot by telling them to be modest. I mean I don’t, but you do. I have seen it. I was a young, not very modest musician. I think folks wanted me to be a different person. There’s no way I am going to learn something cool and not talk about it, share it, write about it, or use it in a song. That is who I am. I am the only person in this town of 100,000 that I know like me. I would say my modesty is about right for that. As immodest as I am, though, I still don’t tell musicians to be modest, and the main reason is…

Undue modesty thwarts education.

I enjoy the teaching aspect of music more than any other aspect of it. I feel like we are all in a lab. If someone has the answer, out with it. So many times I have learned folks know infinitely more than they let on because they felt they needed to be modest. But as someone getting to know them, it felt like they were introducing restrictions and controlling the relationship. I’ve also felt “observed” in a creative sense. Unless there’s a crowd in front of us, I am not looking to be observed in music. I am happy in a learning environment to participate in discussion, but even that is boring with cagey-modest-types. They drive me crazy, frankly. Why not talk about what you know and do? I am into it. I want to learn. Is this fun for you?

Then there’s the fact that if you want “the best me,” you probably need ears.

Also, I am not good at a lot of things. I am really bad at a lot of things. I feel like when I get to do music, I get to do something I am much better at. For folks who have the same thing going on, not able to admit it, I suggest looking at that. It has shifted the focus on how I do music; every step is fun. It has changed my sound, a little more snarky, more tape. It has drastically improved the amount of time I can work on music in one sitting so I am able to work longer sessions. It has changed my preferences a little in that I hear what folks are doing in certain songs more. You are possibly missing out on all this, maybe more, by being modest.

Sorry if you don’t know what music is.

See, music is your self-expression. Regardless of what you think that music is or does that you’re making, it paints some kind of image of you to the listener. No one can help that. That is what it is. Personally, that’s what I hate about a lot of AI-type sounds because I see circuits and machine language in my brain. I want to be away from that stuff, vibing to music. So I try to hide or not use any elements like that, these days. I am trying to facilitate the image of a human, this human right here. If I am not honest about that image, I am not sure what I am trying to do as a musician. That is going to make me sound immodest sometimes.

Kelly Kintner

The Kintners, (producer, writer, most instruments, vocal)

Djembe Funk, (one-man jam rock, protest, afrorock)

I love this service.

A while back, I came across a service online called GetMusic.fm. Since then, I have quit social media, thrown my phone in the garbage, but not lost very many listeners on Bandcamp at all. Considering I have started new projects and managed to find listeners without the usual hoopla, I wanted to give GetMusic.fm a proper love post. They are the reason.

I have people now.

The world is up its own ass all the time these days. It’s hard for the creative like myself who needs a clear head to think of characters and stories. It is very hard to get a clear head. I would buy it if I could. What I have found to be essential in my process of making music and writing is a head devoid of people unless I make them up. I didn’t get that for years. But once I took a social media break a couple of years ago, I never went back. I like the empty space in my head. There is room for me there. I do not think there is room for me in crowded social media. My brain just doesn’t function as well there. While I may need socials to get word out about my music, I do not need them at all in the process of making it. This is where GetMusic.fm comes in.

The dangers of doing self-promo and staying up all night on socials, 101.

I like people. I love to visit. But that isn’t social media. Social media is more like a race than a hangout. You are on a track. You may not know it, going so fast. But much like a theme park, your rides are on rails. Controlled. Planned. Behind the scenes. What really pisses me off is the information entered in social media isn’t used to find you potential buddies. It is used to cater more of what the computer thinks you want to you. This distorts reality… at least it did mine.

The escape from the madness.

But GetMusic.fm and ten dollars is a steal. (For the record, I have asked for a free credit on their site before, and they gladly handed me one. Now I can afford it. But that was nice.) All the codes that Bandcamp gives you, give them to GetMusic.fm; they find folks to download your music. The site is amazing with collections, highlights, catalogs, and spiffy tools to help folks find the kinds of music they like. There are even spotlights.

You mean I show up in searches? Who is credited for putting me there?

What I see now, today, as my reason for writing this, is GetMusic.fm does a whole lot more. Look what happens when I search the latest Djembe Funk tune on Google.

When I scroll here, I see a lot of work GetMusic does getting my song out to socials. I see Google notices that. Google notices their site where my music is at, and I am talked about sometimes. Nearly all the information Google is showing me they have on my new song comes from GetMusic.fm. To me, that’s above and beyond the call of duty.

How it works.

Here’s how it works: I make a song, I put the song on Bandcamp, then I fill out the GetMusic.fm form to add it there. Sometimes I don’t have the free Bandcamp codes, but at 3 bucks for a hundred of them, I can swing it. Then 10 bucks to Chuck over at GetMusic and I am in business. For 13 dollars, I now have better promo than I have ever gotten. No social media. No copy/paste. No forgetting who I am talking to. Just finishing my coffee.

To have presence and not have to work at it is priceless. That is what you get here. It may cost a small amount of money, sure. But it’s priceless.

I can see myself. Google says who posted information about me. It was GetMusic.fm.

I can verify with my own eyes and searches. GetMusic.fm is hot on the case. GetMusic.fm wants me to have a good time schlepping songs. They have a huge crowd that jumps on releases and even talks about them. I found that in searches too. They shared me on Threads and Insta. I haven’t had a log in to those places for years. To me, that’s GetMusic.fm doing the “dirty work.”

An easy decision if you are me.

This is a valuable service to anyone like me who likes spending more time offline making music than online pushing it. If you would like a nudge in your Bandcamp downloads, it’s an easy decision.

Basically the cost of a value meal.

Could I save the 13 dollars and get on socials and put myself in Google searches? Most likely. But I take the 13-dollar option every day of the week. Twice on Sunday. For comparison, the last time we ate at McDonald’s was 23 dollars. So for my portion of a 2-meal ticket at cheap fast food, I never have to log into social media for a release. That’s a good deal.

Kelly Kintner, Producer

Djembe Funk (GetMusic.fm link)

The Kintners (GetMusic.fm link)