As alluded in yesterday’s post, at the height of my time writing in the music industry, I kept more than half the freebie promotional books, CDs, vinyl, DVDs and Blu Rays I was being sent for review and interview consideration. This added to a meticulously curated collection of music from nearly all genres, not just metal, punk and Goth, which I extensively covered in my time writing in the scene.
Eventually, people started seeing me pull comparisons from other genres and I was being tried with submissions outside of what I could pitch for assignment. In fact, one of the cooler moments in my career was the time a black metal artist reached out to me and thanked me for being the only reviewer, much listener, to pull The Cure from his music. For me, the dank textures I heard from The Cure’s Pornography and Seventeen Seconds was evident and richly used inside the loud and brackish tones said artist employed.
At one point in my career, I was writing for 13 simultaneous venues, print and online, including two monthly columns. Nowadays unheard of, since print media is hanging by a splintering lifeline and even the most seasoned writers are now featured at one to a small handful of gigs at a time.
My pulling hints of country, classic rock, Afrobeat, hip hop, folk, electro-trance, Celtic and ambient into my reviews was because of the constant hunger for music in my life and all the expendable cash I could turn around to try new music from as many diverse walks of life. I sought all the music I could which had any sense of integrity since I felt like it made me a better writer. As we were almost always tight in the budget back then, I would usually take my freelancing money and reinvest it into music purchases. That, plus expertly maximizing all the record store gift certificates I got. I always waited for key sale days where I got a freebie of equal value for each unit bought, this before it was called a BOGO.
It meant to the industry at-large I could field other genres, though it mostly culminated in a nice writing gig for Music Dish where I could take on DVD releases by Joni Mitchell, Barry White and non-heavy music. Even Blabbermouth gave me latitude here and there to drop an off-their-radar retrospective Blu Ray review of, say, The Jam, Bad Brains or The Doors.
My ex-wife was a good sport about it all, but even she had her moments of teeth gnashing when our mailbox was stuffed to the metallic gills with hard copy promos most days. Our bills would end up crushed or sometimes lost altogether from the swamping of promos. The stacks of new material upon my desk were something to behold back then. Nearly as much as the shelving units I erected to store all of this media when I had the basement of a rancher as my office.
Considering I’ve always worked a full-time job, I devoted a large part of my downtime toward building my second career in journalism. No matter how things turned out between my ex and I, I will always give her due credit for giving me the space to chase my dream in the music business. At the height of my time writing in the industry, I was covering 10-12 shows a month with on-site interviews and show photography. That alone was time-consuming, especially the transcriptions and copy submissions. Add all the reviews and time invested listening 2-3 times to a new album release each, sitting in front of the tube with a pad and pen for videos which ran, on average, 2 to 3 hours each, and read new book releases… You get the picture. It was exhilarating, but it was also goddamn exhausting. I slept very little back then. I always talk about going to a show after my day job, getting home, getting the photos and interview turned in by 4:00 a.m., then back up again at 7:30 a.m. to go back to work. I was living the dream, though.
Later in my music career, I ended up taking all the work I could and socking it into our account when times grew tough. I turned it into a second job for income we had to have, and once we adopted our son, it became even more of a challenge to squeeze all of that work for money we needed, since his welfare came first and foremost.
My labyrinth of media was at the rancher, and I do miss it because of the beautiful neighbors we had, plus my monster-wide office which even had my old drum set and congas to spank in-between assignments. Those were some amazing years of my life and before we were forced to move out by the landlord who was selling the place, I had nine total shelves loaded with books, CD, vinyl and videos. I wish I’d taken more photos than these, but you literally walked into a self-made corridor of media which intimidated most of our guests but had a few wanting to stay there the entire time during a visit and pick my brain for industry stories.
When we had to relocate, we had to downsize in space. I ended up giving trash bags full of media to my friends that wouldn’t fit, especially in a well-stuffed storage locker. It became a matter of treating things less as my trophy room and more for practicality. Moving 26 boxes just for my media (my comic book collection is another beast altogether) became more of a taxing chore than a love of it. With each subsequent move, I pared down the collection even more, feeling my heart pierce each time.
I still had a wonderful collection before I separated from my ex, but I began to feel embarrassed when it took nearly 45 minutes alone to pull my media out of the basement even then. Once TJ and I got together and I saw her cringe at what I still had of media, I was initially saddened. Once we got serious together and decided marriage was going to be a thing, though, I knew we could only bring so much of our excess into a unified home with my son.
The rest, you all know. My music, the best of the best, is still with me, just more portable. The most meaningful CDs I refuse to part with, like my film scores and soundtracks, my Stax Records and 1950s American Heartbeat rock ‘n roll box sets, my Prince, Iron Maiden and Voivod catalogs and CDs that were gifted by bands I still consider friends or signed by artists I interviewed, like Lee Aaron and Geoff Tate, formerly of Queensryche… TJ understands that much.
She calls me overly sentimental and perhaps she’s right, but I bled for the industry and I’m not ashamed of all that I hoarded, even if it meant more to me and my colleagues than most people who came by to see the labyrinth in all its gaudy glory. My life has turned exponentially for the better and I see an even greater future ahead, but damn… Just damn.
–Ray Van Horn, Jr.
Roads Lesser Traveled 