Working Through Consulting to Creative People
A blog by psychoanalyst Michael Jolkovski who looks at music ensembles, businesses & creative teams and other examples of human nature at work and play.
There is a common theme to all of this. I promise.
Blog page: 3
On March 11th
More on the theme of “business startups and bands have a great deal to learn from one another”. Daniel Tenner has posted some lessons learned from starting a venture with a friend. He emphasizes the importance of making assumptions explicit, and adds a cartoon featuring a T-Rex as an xkcd hommage.
This should be read by musicians and entrepreneurs alike.
On March 8th
Sorry I didn’t notice when it died — you can follow my blog posts at @workingthrough.
On March 8th
I’ve found it pleasant to play around with the concepts of hacking, bricolage and tinkering as different words for a crucially important mode of human operation. It helps me to think about creativity and what talent really is.
The comments from my prior post on the topic have been helpful, including some made privately. Thanks, Hacker News, for the traffic spike.
Dexter Nyamainashe of Zimbabwe: Hacker Supreme
Mr. Nyamainashe grabbed my attention today (via BoingBoing) as exemplifying hacker greatness.
Most of the comments disagreed with my idea: “Nonsense — the vast majority of human culture is the antithesis of hacker culture“. This made me consider the terminology. The commentator didn’t elaborate, but I imagine he takes “hacker culture” to mean a culture in which transgressive ingenuity is valorized — perhaps as seen in subsets of MIT or the early days of the Homebrew Computer Club — and that he might say the majority of culture in all places is in the thrall of convention and fear, the “antithesis” he decries. If this is his meaning, I concede the point. Read more »
On March 7th 1 Comment
Following up to a comment to this post, There is certainly the sentiment that it’s better to make a statement and quit than fade away. Long-lived bands are always subject to complaints from their fans that it’s not the same, etc. Metallica is a great example of a band whose fans seem to include an army of whiners. Do Metallica fans like anything Metallica has ever put out? (I think the real complaint is “you’re not young any more and neither are we and it’s your fault”).
I prefer to think of this as a creative problem, especially for groups who fill stadiums when they are young. What do they do with themselves as they grow up? There are a lot of ways to play it, and I don’t feel the need to prescribe how they should go. My big point is that when bands implode from their toxic social dynamics, this creative problem and creative choice is taken away from them, and that’s a shame. Maybe they’d do something interesting with it. Read more »
On March 5th 2 Comments
I was fortunate to talk with Peter Jenner a few weeks ago. The former manager of Pink Floyd, the Clash and others as well as current manager for Billy Bragg, Jenner is vitally engaged in issues of digital music policy and payment systems.
But since I don’t know anything about all that, I got to ask him something I’d been wondering about for a long time.
When a revered band breaks up, the fans mourn and protest, and hopes for reunion dog the band members until enough of them die off.
But maybe the band has run its course and it’s time to end before it becomes its own tribute act. There are times when it is better to declare victory and go home, put out the box set, shed a tear and go on to new projects. It can be liberating and dignified. Read more »
Subscribe to RSS Feed or follow the blog on 
Twitter to receive the latest posts.