YuriWong.com

It’s funny when you think about it:

Mainstream radio promises the freshest new music, the biggest hits, the most current stuff, packaged in the slickest way possible.

Government radio offers the strangest mix of old and new, the anarchy of an uncontrolled playlist, packaged in the most ‘chin-chai’ of productions

I’m listening to Government radio these days.

Why?

Because the music’s great! The lack of control and direction actually make for a great amalgamation of anarchy and cheeziness. You get stuff that you can’t get on mainstream radio: B-sides, non-singles, old stuff, new stuff, indie, mainstream, traditional, you-name-it. Every listen’s different. Just about every listen, I get something fresh.

Mainstream radio?

It’s completely formatted. Not that it’s a bad thing, especially if you want to listen to the latest hot single played every hour. I know exactly what I will get when I tune in. It’s like McDonalds - you go there because you know it will taste the same every time. That’s why McDs are so successful. Consistency.

BUT

If you want something really different every time you tune in, something that surprises you, educates you and (dare I even say it) entertains you, I’d suggest Government Radio.

Funnily enough, through RTM, I’m rediscovering the joy of radio again.

Everything these days is about excitement. People want titillation, the goss, the hot story. In the rush for the rush, the basics of achievement are lost.

I believe that achievement is a play made of two parts that repeat.

Part 1 is the boring bit. It’s the part where you do the things you need to do. The quiet work and the unglamorous sweating.

Part 2 is where you reap the rewards. This is not the achievement; it’s the result of the achievement, which, truly, is the work done.

Formula: Part 1, Part 2. Rest for a bit, then repeat.

Most people want Part 2 without Part 1. Or they want Part 2 to be the main show that fills most of the space and Part 1 the fillers.

Doesn’t work that way.

I’m in Part 1 mode. Will be for a while.

Awards-By-Vote have their own strange equations.

When you’re nominated and want people to vote for you, you can either:
1. Ask them to vote for you
2. Ask them to vote for who they like

These are the few possible scenarios:
1. They don’t vote at all
2. They vote for not-you (someone else).
3. They vote for you.

#1 is pretty simple: nothing happens. It could be because they don’t think you deserve a vote but don’t want to vote for anyone else. Or because they don’t feel like doing it. Or because they just don’t care.

#2 happens for a few reasons:
(i) They think someone else deserves a vote more than you
(ii) They hate your guts and don’t want you to win

#3 happens because:
(i) They feel obligated to (friendship, relationship, etc)
(ii) They don’t want the other guy to win
(iii) They want you to win

Now, having people want you to win is obviously most desirable, but there’s nothing you can do in the short term to make people ‘want you to win’, save the figurative shaking of hands and kissing of babies (i.e. a ‘Love Me’ campaign)

So what you can do is this:

• Work hard to create great works
• Give them something that’s of value (in music’s case: entertainment, provocation, connection, amongst other things)
• Make them aware of the poll, and let them vote who they want.

You can’t make anyone love you; you can only make yourself the kind of person people love.

p.s. Yes, I’ve been nominated here. Vote for your favourite, please.

When you’re a performer onstage, and people are watching you for the first time, you start from a pretty good place. Not a fantastic place, but a pretty good one.

You start from a place called ‘The Benefit of Doubt’.

A lot of people who are in positions of attention (comedians, musicians, emcees, etc) think that trust is something you start of with. No. You start off neither with nor without your audiences trust. You start off from the position of, “I’ll give her the benefit of doubt. Let’s see what she’s got to offer.”

The audience needs to know why you’re there; whether you’re worthy of their attention. They want to like you, but you have to give them a reason to. Entertain them. Show them something spectacular. Make them feel something. Build the trust that if they invest their attention with you, you’ll repay them with an experience. An experience that they can take something away with.

It’s the same with business relationships, friendships, anything involving two parties or more: Trust is not by default. Give people something to love you for and they will.

It’s quite simple, really. Lies don’t work. Lies only get you so far before the walls come tumbling down. Most importantly, lies chip away at trust, slowly but surely.

When you want to connect to people, be it your friends, your colleagues or even your fans, tell the truth. Maybe the truth is ‘I don’t want to tell you the truth right now, so I’m not telling you anything’, but that’s better than a lie, because once you’re caught lying, they will not trust you anymore. And the next time you say anything, they will not listen.

Trust, on the other hand, is a hard tower to build. It’s a brick-by-brick process that’s built from little chunks of honesty every day. The reward comes when you’ve built your tower, because the people will listen. Because they will trust you.

Lets talk about discovery

*Warning: the following paragraph requires imagination & a warped sense of reality*

The Year 1491:
Imagine that America was somewhere in your neighbourhood, maybe just around the street corner. Imagine that one day, while out for a walk, you stumbled upon The Land. Would you go off and tell your friends you discovered America? Would you say you beat Columbus to it? Would you feel cheated if Amerigo, the kid down the street, claim HE discovered it first? Most importantly, would it really mean anything to anyone?

What does ‘discover’ really mean?

How does an artiste, a musician, get discovered?

How can a person say, “I discovered Alicia Keys” like she was hidden in a locked basement somewhere and was let out?

What happens after an artiste is discovered? Is there even such a thing, getting ‘discovered’?

Perhaps. Discovery, in the sense of music, is finding little pockets of happiness from the music you listen to. I listen to KT Tunstall’s ‘Stopping The Love’ and I take delight in her voice. The backing vocals remind me of some early 20th century harmonies and I smile. Through her music, I discover a kind of happiness.

As a musician, you create little moments like these. Not necessarily lets-throw-daisies-and-dance happiness, but I-feel-you happiness. And when people connect to those little quanta of happiness, the discovery is pure magic.

From the time my brain started reasoning all the way to yesterday, I used to think that people who did bad things to you deserved their come-uppance delivered straight from your very hands.

Today, I may have changed my view on that.

Maybe there really is Karma. Maybe their actions that brought you pain and suffering stretched the fabric of existence and shaped it into something that would somehow make them learn the truth of their transgression. Maybe all you have to do is live your life without anger and hate and let the universe decide.

I think it’s a better way than the one I had yesterday.

Who you are and who you imagine yourself to be are are two very different things.

There tends to be quite a gap between the two. Some larger than others.

Oftentimes, when we do something it’s not us we see in our mind’s eye. At the karaoke, your friend sings an Aretha Franklin song, but it’s not her voice she hears; it’s The Queen of Soul’s, demandin’ some R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Your mate picks up his guitar, and he’s transformed into Stevie Ray making Number-1 wail. Your basketball buddy scores that lay up from Michael Jordan’s hands.

It’s hardly a bad thing to think yourself greater than you are. It’s only a problem if the gap never closes.
Some part of true happiness lies in closing that gap. I think it’s better to close it upwards, by striving to be who you imagine yourself to be, than downwards, by thinking yourself to be truly less than the heroes in your mind.

Bikes out in the flood
Feet in the mud
It’s just an ordinary day
We fell much more than we do today
But we still fall in our different ways

Sitting, walking, talking, laughing
When the web was just a spider’s home
Standing, running, yelling, crying,
Without you I’d be all alone

Cares were less, ’twas the best
Days were long as we were young
We had our choice, we had our toys
We made much noise, oh boy

You were blue, we were true
I was the little one next to you
It was way back
Back when we were boys

I remember the days when
We used to play in the backlanes of a time gone by

And there were times when I couldn’t stand on my own
And you stood by me to help me up

Oh Brother don’t hold me back from telling these tales
Your love it won’t go forgotten
Oh Sister you’re now his life, his love, his all
And without you he’ll be all alone

Cares were less, ’twas the best
Days were long as we were young
We had our choice, we had our toys
We made much noise, oh boy

You were blue, we were true
I was the little one next to you
It was way back
Back when we were boys

What a weekend!

Love, wine & song were in abundance at my brother’s wedding weekend. It was a great, great time.

I’ve uploaded the song that I wrote and performed for my brother on the music player on the right. It’s called ‘When We Were Boys’. Hope you like it as much as I enjoyed playing it last night.