Panic On

The world desperately needs more people creating art

I often think to myself, what is the point in writing about some obscure album or song that so few people have heard?

I would certainly have more subscribers if I didn’t.

I then think, what is the point in writing about some album or song that has been written about countless times?

Another essay on ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ or Led Zeppelin?

No thanks.

I then look out my window and see the smoke on the horizon from a world that is on fire, and I think, what is even the point in creating art?

Is it selfish of me not to be writing about the things that are out of my control when so many people in this world are suffering due to insane politics and hatred?

Is making art a selfish act?

I then remind myself that the problem isn’t art.

What our world desperately needs now IS more people creating art. So I then convince myself that it is selfish of me NOT to create and share my art.

Every child is born with the curiosity to create. The truth is that school un-teaches creativity, and as we grow older, we often lose that curiosity. We also now live in a world that is designed to keep us distracted and glued to our phones. It seeks to make us spectators rather than active participants.

We have become watchers rather than doers.

In a chaotic world that profits from death and suffering rather than celebrating art, we are taught to actively question the purpose of creating art. As we also become increasingly detached from our humanity with the advancement of AI, it now asks us to question the very essence of the creative process.

So much is out of my control, and yet the few things I can control are the time I spend doomscrolling and making art. Besides Substack, I am not on any social media, and even with Substack, I deleted the app from my phone because I found it a time suck (especially since the introduction of Notes).

This past week, with almost every post on my Notes feed being about Charlie Kirk, I had to take a break from Substack. And, if I am honest, before the events that happened last week, I had never even heard of Charlie Kirk.

I can hear some of you say… “What? How could you not have heard of that guy, and why?”

I am not on social media. I don’t have Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X/Twitter, Bluesky, Reddit, or Discord. I also don’t sit on the news for hours on end. I decided a while ago, for my own mental health, that I needed to control how much news I was absorbing. I now do so only in small doses, when I choose, and often via foreign sources because the US media is far too US-centric.

My life was better not knowing who this Kirk guy was.

Does that mean I have been living under a rock?

Maybe.

But I’d rather be living under a rock with my records and tubes of Alizarin Crimson, Phthalo Blue, and Naples Yellow than consume my life with the hateful rhetoric of people like Charlie Kirk.

Control what I can control.

I can control the art I create, the art I absorb, and just being a decent and kind human being.

So, as the smoke and glow from the world’s dumpster fire gets closer and closer, I write these words that are relatively meaningless to anybody other than me, and as always, I leave you with a song.

Madder Rose

New York’s Madder Rose are one of my absolute favorite bands from the 1990s. With a melodic yet raw sound centered around Billy Coté’s hypnotic, dreamy guitar, which sounds like it’s emerging from a haze of narcotics, paired with Mary Lorson's calm, elegant vocals, Madder Rose stood out from the angry American post-grunge bands and the smugness of Britpop. Their sound was inspired by a wide variety of influences, not least The Velvet Underground, Suicide, and Sonic Youth, but they always made it their own.

What also made Madder Rose stand out was their West Village art school vibe. I could relate to them in a way that I couldn’t relate to many of the other bands of the time. From Billy’s paintings and mixed-media collages that graced their singles, EPs, and album covers to how they presented themselves, and even their name (Rose Madder is a translucent red paint that has a soft magenta hue and violet undertones).

Madder Rose oozed art school cool, and their albums almost smelled like turpentine and linseed oil.

Rose Madder

Formed in New York City in 1991, the band initially released four superb albums, several singles, and a couple of brilliant EPs. Sadly, after 1999’s darkly ethereal and haunting ‘Hello June Fool,’ they broke up. However, after a twenty-year hiatus, in 2019, Madder Rose reformed to brilliant form and released their first album in twenty years, the stripped-down, minimalistic, yet gorgeous ‘To Be Beautiful.’ They followed it up in 2023 with the equally exceptional ‘No One Gets Hurt Ever.’

I have been listening to Madder Rose a lot this past week. I could have chosen any number of songs by the band because I love all of their albums and EPs. But in these tumultuous times, I leave you with the title track from their second album, ‘Panic On’ from 1994.

As the world slips further out of our control, it’s easy to panic, but I then look at Billy’s handmade art on the album’s cover and listen to a vulnerable Mary Lorson sing a song that voiced similar concerns thirty-one years ago.

Had a light, one night in the dark

It won't show you too much of the future

Let it go, let it fall behind

I would never count on human nature

The world was a different place in 1994. Times may have changed, but the panic we feel today was also there in 1994, and I suspect it will still be here thirty years from now.

While history has proven that I can’t count on human nature to change, I can always count on the creative act that humans possess.​ And when I am surrounded by art, it always helps soothe my nerves, and the panic that is welling inside me begins to dissipate.