(Note: our regular listener knows this stuff by heart. This is for anyone who may have read our new Aux.Out. article on music discovery & just can’t figure us out. )
“Who the hell are you guys?”
We get that question. A lot.
The short answer:
We’re kirk & wendy. Or wendy & kirk. (We’re kind of interchangeable.) We make music. And our manager is a cat.
That’s usually enough to scare people off.
If not, we get asked:
“Oh! So what kind of music do you make?”
That’s a question we still can’t answer – even after 12 years of releasing music.
Our best attempt:
another cultural landslide is an on-going experiment: our music is all about Taking Risks. To us, music is a journey, not a destination – so we just go wherever It takes us. We never do the same thing twice: No Two Songs Alike. Ever. This makes us “post-genre,” because… well, genres don’t work well with our stuff. (We’re also shit-stirrers: we want to make people think.)
And once finished, we give our music away for free – because, to us, music is a gift to be shared.
Usually after saying all that, everyone either runs away – or tells us “that’s a lousy business model.”
Screw business models.
We Make Music. Period.
You’re still reading? Hmmm.
In that case…
This Is Why We Do What We Do:
Both kirk and wendy were classically trained musicians. We both went to prestigious music schools.
And we both hated our musical education with an absolute passion.
What we experienced was a cookie-cutter approach to music: a way of thinking about music totally foreign to the organic creation & performance of music. You were required to work within one particular genre only. A particular instrument was designed to be used in only one type of music. Maintain the status quo. Don’t push the envelope.
Bullshit.
After several years of this crap inside academe & outside in the “real” world, we left the world of music behind us, thinking that making music wasn’t supposed to be a part of our lives…
… but upon re-meeting each other decades later, we fell back into making music almost instantly – this time with a renewed vigor. It wasn’t that we wanted to make music with each other – we had to make music with each other…
And this time we would do what we wanted to do – not what was socially acceptable, and not what was culturally expected. We wanted any music that came from us to be a living thing – even if it ended up looking like the baby from “It’s Alive.” (What the hell. That baby had really cute claws and an awesome growl.)
Most importantly: there would be No Limitations, and No Bullshit Allowed – and we would do it outside the standard music ecosystem.
We went as far as creating a basic philosophy: seven rules for how we’d make music… and supplemented those rules with seven built-in self-destruct mechanisms.
The another cultural landslide Rules For Making Music:
1) The Music Must Always Comes First. We serve the music – the music doesn’t serve us. When we walk into the studio, whatever comes out, comes out. We plan nothing – not themes, not lyrics, nothing. It comes together on its own, by itself – and that’s what it is.
2) Music is a journey, and never a destination. We don’t know what it will sound like until we get there. No boundaries. No genres. Just music. We will not be pigeon-holed.
3) We will never think about what we make. We will just do it.
4) No egos. That crap just gets in the way of making music and connecting with anyone who would like to hear our music. This translates into acl being a lower case band, with no last names – just kirk & wendy – and no band pictures. (Besides, MzKitty’s own oversized ego would never allow that.)
5) If we’ve done it before, we won’t do it again. That would be boring. And that’s why all of our songs sound so different from each other: because every song must be different. If a new song we’re creating starts sounding like something else we’ve done before, we throw it out. (We have a very large musical graveyard.)
6) Music is a gift to be shared (it literally saved our lives), so we will always give away our music For Free. The sole exception to this rule would be music commissioned & created for a specific purpose (what the hell, that way we could buy more shit to make more music) – but even then, a lot of the time we give that music away, too.
7) Most Importantly: We Refuse To Take Ourselves Seriously. We don’t make Art. We make Music. And music should be fun to make. When it stops being fun, we’ll stop. Period.
The another cultural landslide Self-Destruct Mechanisms:
We’re married – and crazy in love with each other – so we decided to made seven more rules to protect what we treasured most: each other, and our music.
1) If it starts to screw up our marriage, We Stop.
2) If it starts to feel like an obligation, We Stop.
3) It must always be fun; even if we’re creating some totally dark & gloomy work, it must always be fun to create. If we no longer have fun creating, We Stop.
4) If by some astronomically fat chance we became successful at making music to the point it would require us to build an organization to maintain it, We Stop.
5) In fact, if we can’t do it by ourselves, We Stop. (The only exceptions to this rule are in areas we truly, truly suck at – like artwork & websites – because we suck at art, and we really suck at web design.)
6) Our music must always be Honest and From The Heart. If we hear a cash register sneaking its way into a piece of music, we throw the piece out. If all we hear are cash registers, We Stop.
7) Once we release our music, our goal is to connect with every listener as an Individual. We will encourage them to Create. Encourage them to Grow. Encourage them to Think. And most importantly, Give Them Hope. If we can’t do that, We Stop.
We’ve lived by these rules for over 12 years now. This is Who We Are.
So why is it important that we’re telling you these rules?
These aren’t just the rules we live by.
These are our promises to You.
You are not a Wallet. You are not a “Consumer.” You are not a “fan,” or a part of our “fanbase.” We refuse to buy into that leftover 20th Century horseshit thinking.
You Are An Individual – and you deserve to be treated as such.
You are Our Listener – and Our Friend. And we’ll be your friends – if you want us to hang around. 😉
This is how we do things. And we keep our promises.
We are truly honored and humbled that you’ve chosen to listen to us – or, for that matter, read our rantings.
And we thank you for reading this.
Because You matter to us.
kirk & wendy – aka acl, aka @anothercultand, aka another cultural landslide
P.S. as usual, mzkitty sez hi
