I’m an old musician with a beard. Nothing too sexy there, right?
I go by the name of “Ghostly Beard”, pretty silly, right?
Now let me tell you why I chose to use that silly moniker and display a logo everywhere as my artist identity.
Being an old dude, I remember a time when people used to listen to music intently: Not as a background or as a thing to dance on, or to pump the energy at the gym, no, just listening for the listening experience. I remember being in a group of friends whose principal pleasure in life was to listen to music. Man, did we love the music then!
It was the seventies, and what a glorious time for music that was as well.
We used to spend hours at the disc shop, looking at these ever-tempting covers, such clever artworks, and all our pocket money and any money we could have gained from little summer jobs was going into it.
We then hastened to our home, our newly bought LP in hand, and what a thrill it was to put the needle on the vinyl for the first time!
I remember spending countless evenings playing games and just generally doing nothing but listening to good music of the time, it was also a group experience. I will not cite any of these bands and albums we were listening to, it would be too long a list. But it was a real experience (and honestly very seldom was there any funny substances involved, the music was plenty enough to trip on!) and something that I doubt ever happens anymore.
Truth is that from that time on, I’ve always enjoyed listening to music with my eyes closed. It’s a very well-known fact that all good mixing engineers will tell you about: You hear things differently with your eyes closed… You can really concentrate on every nuance of sound, and you often discover things that you would overlook otherwise.
Things have changed a lot from that time of my youth, I think it began with the rise of MTV, when suddenly a music video clip was the thing and the music was the background soundscape of striking images… And today it seems that everyone is obsessed with images, I mean it sure sounds completely crazy that the number one platform for music discovery turns out to be YouTube, don’t you think?
So, because I want people to focus on the music (and because I don’t think using my ugly mug would be such an incentive to check my music anyway) I chose to use a logo everywhere instead of my portrait. I don’t want to hide as such, but I want the music to come first, the way it should be.
I believe that music nowadays is still as powerful as it was in the seventies. You can find great bands especially in the indie world, writing and playing great music, there’s tons of music to discover, but is anyone truly listening?
So now, I have a request for you: the next time you listen to music, why don’t you try and Close Your Eyes?
Ghostly Beard Social Links:
WEBSITE: https://ghostlybeard.com/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/ghostlybeard
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/aghostlybeard/
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/ghostlybeard/