Why weird is my new wonderful.

Jeeni Blog

Helping the next generation of talent to build a global fanbase

Why weird is my new wonderful.

By Sammie Venn Jeeni's Official Writer, Columnist and Blogger.

The dictionary definition of weird is “extraordinary, out of this world” I remember the feeling of utter hope and merriment when I read that. I suddenly didn’t feel alone anymore. Once I fully released my inner oddball, the magic started to happen. The people who I thought I loved and loved me just fell away. It was like watching grains of sand slip through my fingers. At the time it felt like a gigantic loss but in hindsight it was the best gift I could have been given. I’m grateful every day for all the losses as what I have gained surpasses anything I could have dreamt of. I came out of the “kooky closet” said a tentative hello to my new surroundings and have never looked back.

Having always felt like I had trodden a different path in life, I used to feel embarrassed about my so called “weirdness”. A damaging label that was attributed over the course of many years. Always being on the periphery at school, shallow friendships and poor choices in men made me feel like there was something wrong with me.

Decades later I began the journey of coming to terms with whatever it was that made me feel a bit different. I read countless books, watched documentaries on Gaia, downloaded as many spiritual audibles as I could afford and after a period of counselling I realised that actually being “different” totally rocked and I certainly wasn’t the only one experiencing all those feelings of self-doubt. Self-doubt had finally set sail to distant shores and my passport to a happier more soulful life had been stamped with creativity with no expiration date.

My wired but wonderful List...So I’m not ashamed of saying that...

3am – the hour of writers, poets, musicians, silence seekers and overthinkers – In this crazy time that is 3am I really do achieve a lot of work. The silence is accompanied with prolific bird song and the sunrise paints a spectacular sunset across the fields. So there is no better landscape for creativity.

Gardening at Night -I water my roses at midnight in an old fashioned Victorian nightie with a gin and tonic in hand. The kiss of the night time breeze provides a magical space to reflect on the past 24 hours and plan the next.

Adventure at work -I have made a home office in my camper van and drive to various different places to work and mediate and be away from the humdrum of daily life. I need to be portable otherwise I feel stagnant and confined. My camper caters for most needs; a whistling kettle for fresh coffee, a writing station and insanely comfortable bed for those cheeky afternoon power naps.

Writing Erotica -I love to write erotic poetry and have an entire bookcase at home dedicated to naughtiness throughout the ages. Ancient manuscripts and recent tomes dedicated to Love, and all of the emotions surrounding it adorn the shelves.

Wild words and Soul Magic - I have about 10 different tarot desks I particularly Love Rebecca Campbell’s “Work your light” the illustrations are as magical as her words. I love to practice either quietly by myself or with my bestie in London. We savour our weekends as they are few and far between these days but we still write together and have created different worlds where we pretend to live like we were once warrior soul sisters. In fact lockdown has been perfect for that.

There are so many other things I do in my arsenal of “weird but wonderful” and I wouldn’t be without any of them now. Lewis Carroll wrote in “Alice in Wonderland” “you’re mad, bonkers, completely off your head. But I’ll Tell you a secret. All the best people are”. Definitely my mantra, it even sits as a plaque on my wall in the studio.

Have you got any practices or quirks that you embrace? We would love to hear about them.

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25
Mar

McCartney & Beck Share New Disco-Funk Track

Paul McCartney and Beck share their new disco-funk track, "Find My Way". The single is from McCartney's album "McCartney III Imagined" and transforms his original classic rock track, into a disco-funk tune. The track is full of the usual fun you expect from Beck, including his use of a Vocoder. Streamed video below. Beck (Photo - Philip Cosores) McCartney (Photo - MJ Kim) “You never used to be afraid of days like these / But now you’re overwhelmed by your anxieties,” he sings on the chorus. “Let me help you out, let me be your guide / I can help you reach the love you feel inside.” https://youtu.be/rdYNPhaQ96Y "Find My Way" is the opening track on the new collaboration album, which sees McCartney teaming up with artists, Phoebe Bridgers, Anderson .Paak, St. Vincent, Blood Orange and Damon Albarn. Each artist has covered or reimagined a track from the "McCartney III" album, which The Beatles bassist released in December 2020, to critical acclaim. Earlier the month "The Kiss of Venus" by Dominic Fike was the first taster to be released from the upcoming album, dropping April 16 2021. McCartney III Imagined Tracklist:01. Find My Way (feat. Beck)02. The Kiss of Venus (Dominic Fike)03. Pretty Boys (feat. Khruangbin)04. Women And Wives (St. Vincent Remix)05. Deep Down (Blood Orange Remix)06. Seize The Day (feat. Phoebe Bridgers)07. Slidin’ (EOB Remix)08. Long Tailed Winter Bird (Damon Albarn Remix)09. Lavatory Lil (Josh Homme)10. When Winter Comes (Anderson .Paak Remix)11. Deep Deep Feeling (3D RDN Remix)12. Long Tailed Winter Bird (Idris Elba Remix) * * = Physical release exclusive track McCartney III Imagined www.jeeni.com www.youtube.com

15
Dec

Giack Bazz - 'Childhood Dream' Album Review

Back in 2016, Giack Bazz released his first album, ‘Childhood Dream’. The debut of the Italian singer-songwriter is a dazzling and transportive dive into nostalgia, sentimental imagery and grief. After losing his mother at a young age, Giack had a mountain of un-processed emotion that he had to unleash, and ‘Childhood Dream’ is packed to each corner with every truth and painful memory Giack had to give. Although Giack has now expressed his talent and creativity across many ground-breaking projects, including a giant 366 track album as a part of ‘The Royalty Instrumentality Project’, it can sometimes be incredibly insightful to reflect on the origins and context of fascinating and experimental artists. By looking at where an artist has been, in contrast to where they currently find themselves, you can gain an informative, albeit condensed idea of their journey as a person as well as a creative. In many ways, this beautifully in-depth debut inadvertently set out a loose blueprint for Giack’s future as an artist. In comparison to Giack’s later work, ‘Childhood Dream’ tends to have a more fundamental and focused attitude to instrumentation and production techniques. The simplicity and clarity in these stripped-back arrangements end up giving the album a charming and effective tone as it doesn’t distract from the source of the bitter-sweet narratives: Giack’s voice. Speaking of Giack’s voice, it's so expressive and rich in this album which is only enhanced with the use of double-tracking which fills the stereo space up with his emotional intent. Giack harnesses deep-set and perhaps previously under-processed feelings and thoughts in his performances. As he put it himself, “The album is the closure I needed to my childhood. It is an acknowledgement, the acceptance that the dreams we have and the rose-tinted glasses we have are painful to remove.” In terms purely of songwriting and production choice, ‘Morning’ is a clear highlight for me on this album. The decision to have thrashing, distorted guitar with no accompaniment other than Giack’s voice works so well in the choruses and draws attention to the part instead of masking it with layers of bass and drums. The reverb on the two parts that make up the song creates a clear physical space causing an authentic sensation of atmosphere and immersion. The joyous home-video samples from Giack’s childhood, heard in the title track, have a slightly melancholic and touching intention relating to how he honours his late Mother. As Giack put it, “The songs have some noise collections from my family tapes and it's a way to honour her memory and to tell her that I understand why she tried to keep the truth.” This album is often dark and pained, especially in the penultimate track, ‘Piazza Roma’. Although (unlike the others), the track is exclusively sung in Italian, I don’t believe understanding the lyrics is necessary to comprehend the pain in this harrowing and anguished piece. In the verses, the guitar is exhausted as though it itself is emotionally drained. It sluggishly carries the jangling chords all by itself, as Giack gives a similarly tired, yet determined vocal performance. Just before the choruses, a pause can be heard as though Giack is about ready to resign to grief, yet triumphantly, he rises up to sing his heart out in his native tongue. With the ‘This Is the Beginning’ intro and ‘This Is Not the End’ outro, Giack opens up his personal origin yet refuses to close it at this point because although, as Giack stated, that without his childhood bereavement, “I’d be someone else”, the grief does not define him. He therefore leaves the album open and even ends it as it begins, with a repeating sole note on the piano, implying optimism, self-growth and a strength in accepting his past. A stunningly poignant close to this expressive and emotionally challenging debut. How can Jeeni support artists like Giack Bazz? JEENI is a multi-channel platform for original entertainment on demand. We’re a direct service between creatives and the global audience. • We give creatives, independent artists and performers a showcase for their talent and services. And they keep 100% of everything they make. • We empower our audience and reward them every step of the way. • We promise to treat our members ethically, fairly, honestly and with respect. • Access to artist liaison and a supportive marketing team Check out Giack Bazz’s Showcase on Jeeni: https://jeeni.com/showcase/giack-bazz

06
Jun

My grandfather was killed by a rubbish truck.

Jeeni has returned to Crowdcube to raise more funds for helping new talent. Jeeni founding director Mel Croucher says, “I admit we’re ahead of our original schedule, but there’s still so much more to do. We need to scale our online platform globally now and build our mass artist showcases. Then we can hit all our targets, and give our new artists the recognition they deserve.” If you want to see our pitch click HERE. Mel has been writing the best-loved column in top-selling tech magazines for over 30 years. Now he’s agreed to share his work with all our members. He’s a video games pioneer and musician, and to to find out more about Mel check out his Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Croucher. Here’s one of Mel’s latest! One bright Autumn morning, my grandfather was killed by a rubbish truck. He got run over crossing the road on his regular walk to work. He was 84. And I am comforted to know that he loved his work as much as he loved his walk. As for me, I have yet to reach that ripe old age but I am still working most hours, most days. It's not so much that I love my work, more that I don't know what else to do. When I was younger, so much younger than today, I was promised a sci-fi world where all labour would be performed by robots, leaving us humans to enjoy a more meaningful existence. Before my grandfather was born, Karl Marx wrote that in a mechanised society workers would be freed from the monotony of work to “hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, criticise after dinner.” My grandfather certainly never saw such a sci-fi world or Marxist society, and I'm still waiting for it. But the way things are going I may not have to wait much longer for robots to take over the tedium of work. Judging by their behaviour, I suspect that most telemarketers, receptionists, estate agents and bar tenders were replaced by robots ages ago. And for drivers, machine operators and manual workers, it can only be only a matter of time. The first robot aircraft pilot took to the skies then navigated flawlessly and landed safely way back in 1947. Robots have been successfully conducting complex heart surgery since 2004. Artificial intelligence has already reached the cognitive power of a nine year-old human, in which case it is qualified to run for President of the USA in November. But do we really need political leaders to tell us how best to fill our waking hours? If we can develop all these technological wonders then we should be smart enough to work it out for ourselves. Our waking hours are dominated by work, whether we are in work or not. Strikers are depicted as troublemakers. Artists are depicted as idle. The poor are depicted as scroungers. The state cajoles the unemployed, the sick and the disabled to get off their arses and work. We are educated with the goal of work in mind, then having worked all our lives we are grudgingly handed back a mingy pension which we paid for in the first place. The idealised worker works in order to pay the childminder, the Deliveroo driver, the dog walker, the baker, the brewer, the app maker, because the idealised worker has no time left for such things. The idealised worker is too busy working to do any of these things for herself. For huge numbers of us the significance of the old certainties of community, religion, politics, and even family, have all fallen away to be replaced by work. For huge numbers of us work is how we give our lives meaning, while at the same time work has become more precarious, more impersonal, more stressful, and the app-driven gig economy is a perfect example of this. Yet everybody knows that automation is already capable of doing most manual jobs of work, and now artificial intelligence is predicted as achieving the capability of taking over most desk-bound jobs too. Since the pandemic, the entire framework of work is falling apart. But as a species we are not hardwired to work for a living. We never have been. We were lied to by those who said we must work, either to deserve a mythological afterlife, or protect an artificial realm, or for supposed honour, or someone else's glory, or for tokens of currency that can only be spent at the store owned by the company that issues those tokens in the first place. But of course all of those motivations are a con. And an obvious con at that. So here's the thing. Now we have cheap reliable technology, let's get all the robots to do as much of the muscle work as they can, and let's get all the artificial intelligences to do as much of the brain work as they can. Then let's redistribute the remaining working hours evenly to we the people, and in return pay ourselves some of that fabricated stuff called money so we can buy good food and decent shelter. By my reckoning six hours a day, three days a week will do nicely to pick up the slack left by the robots. Work needn't be useless. Work includes child-rearing, caring for the elderly and protecting the vulnerable. It also includes growing food, dreaming up new businesses and fixing the tap. And work includes creating music and dance and poetry and streaming it on Jeeni.com. It is self-evident that all valid work is worth the same valid reward. This is not a Marxist idea, or even a socialist proposal. It's the Tories who bang on about work being such a good thing and everyone pulling their weight, and I completely agree with them. Margaret Thatcher, that champion of work culture, said, “The heresies of one period become the orthodoxies of the next.” Yes indeedy, so bring on the robots and the electronic brains. If work is such a good thing then let everyone have a go for a few hours a week for a universal payment. And don't worry about how the payment is distributed, the accounts have all been reckoned by computers for years. Click HERE to visit or return to jeeni.com

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