Inside the Crucible

Part of the assumed responsibilities to the Wall-nuts community is the frequent screening of interviews and articles sent to me by members before posting. I admit that in busier times I may skim a piece or, if I have previously absorbed it, I might grant it a second, albeit perfunctory, glance. regardless, it is a privilege to regularly process these found gems. I am frequently amazed at the tracking skills of my colleagues!

Recently I've come across a few older pieces from mid to late 2011 in which Wally projects what may come of the release of Making Mirrors. He speaks of the previous slow-burn tendencies of prior albums, and the transitions from self-management and production to finally having powerful others looking over his shoulder, breathing down his willowy neck. At the chronological watermark of these interviews, Wally remained unblemished by the numerous challenges of world-wide fame. Perhaps it is merely supposition, but one can almost witness the glow of naivete emitting from him. He was still just Wally, the winsome young music man from Ballnaring with the curly hair and the oddly arresting smile, sifting through the vintage tees and forty-fives at the local Op-shop.

Now we return to the inescapable extant reality. We return to the molten,white-hot current that has swept up the music and inevitably, the man, in some manner. When the spark of humble genius is blended in, the mixture becomes all the more complex and potentially caustic.

We return to the stony crucible in which the artist and his art shift and boil. It is a space with unrelenting oppression, power, assumptions, expectations, criticisms and callousness. It is a place where that which came from the tender recesses of the heart and mind is objectified and stripped bare by any consumer passing by. Love, grief, frustration, joy are all repackaged and put on display for unbounded intrusion. Yet, does the art comes forth with that social contract understood? Do we have an accord, You and Us? 

There must be an astounding tension held between remaining temporal and calm when so many expect so much. As Wally said himself, there is a great deal of "space junk" floating about in the earthly orbit. How does a person reconcile that much of it may now be humming with their moniker, but they cannot expect to listen to all of it? What sounds are refuse and which are the refrain of some transient but valuable insight? What samples deserve a second glimpse? In one interview, recorded hastily in the corner of a noisy bar, Wally admits that he begrudgingly attends to his bursting email inbox, his glutted Twitter account, and often finds himself intransigent and flustered by the din of it all. It distracts him from the genuine fervor inside his mind-the music and its eager birth.

 How can one discern what is relevant when caught in the pressure and calidity of the crucible of fame?Are these very words merely more of the burning compound? Do you choose to ignore the heat and constriction, or do you use it to bring forward some sturdy, shining, alloyed creation?


~~c. P 2012