What’s My Niche?

“What’s my niche?”

With all of the social media platforms that are available to us, the possibilities are endless. Now, more than ever, anyone who wants to take the mic, and stand on a soapbox, and plead their cause, can do just that in more than one place. I remember when YouTube first began, and it was advertised on television spots. Now, it’s hard for people to think of a world without these accouterments.

These platforms and virtual places that we all go to from time to time. I also remember a commercial about the internet, where it showed an eskimo in an igloo ordering online and getting his appliance delivered right to his frozen home. What a world! Now that I am in my fifties, there has been much to be said about having a niche in this industry.

At first, this can be quite perplexing to the mind. After all, what is a niche, and where can you get one? In the older days, there would have been a book called “Niche Markets for Dummies”, but that too, has been overrun by the A.I. We are living in a new age, but as the scriptures say, “there is nothing new under the sun”. Everything else is just packaging.

So, what is my niche? I’m a person who has had the privilege of watching countless entertainers in my time. Really great showmen and women, and giants that we can carry with us everywhere we go. When I grew up on the streets, I tried to emulate them and learn from their genius. As a composer, my early heroes were Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and ‘Poppa’ Hayden, as he was known to some. Please understand that I had contemporary heroes as well. But there was something majestic about the classical, romantic, and other periods that blew me away. I could hear the sound of Motown echo off the city streets. In my neighborhood, it was dominant (of course, I was near Detroit, on the outskirts).

My father’s band was a mix of rock and country, and he was my deepest influence then. I still remember when the band broke up. I had worked on the song “The Gambler”, by Kenny Rogers, and I knew all the words. I was disappointed that our time as a band had finished, but I quickly pivoted into my own thing without pause. I began to write songs at a young age, as well as short stories, and the like. We use to make audio tracks for kungfu movies, turning down the voiceovers so that our crazy antics were all that the script needed. I also began filling a prodigious number of cassette tapes with ideas, thoughts, and songs. These would eventually find their way into my collection, as it continues to grow to this day and beyond.

So, we released a few things, then, but there were so many things going on behind the scenes that affected our career goals and trajectory in the matter: My diagnosis of Bipolar, OCD, ADHD, and PTSD has been a lifelong project of education and simple trial and error. Also, there was my religious journey, which led me to many dark places, before I was able to see the light of dawn in this respect.

Also, there is the issue of filtering and editing my past self. As I was transformed in the Orthodox Church, so my work was affected. There were many themes that no longer applied. Words of anger and unrest that I no longer wanted to shout. Risky material that I deemed unusable in its present state. And still, other recordings where the drinking and drugs were the real producers, and I was just numb from it all. “We are jamming live from the depths of hell, hahahahahahaha!!!” – Lady Cantrell I laughed at that recording, but I can assure you that those years were pain and misery, and unfortunate choices at times. But I still use that song, and I am proud of it, because I have been through the depths of hell in my travels. And like Winston Churchill said, “If you find yourself in hell…KEEP GOING!”

So we have, and we do. Now, we have our new podcast that we are going to share with the world, and we are releasing all of our work over the next several years. So, stay tuned. I’m going to tell it like it is for me in this world, in my experiences, and with my wit, and everything I’ve got. So, if you have an acquired taste for classic things and classic themes, with a new twist, under this sun, I suggest you come join me. As I stipulated, the possibilities are endless, and our reach is worldwide. We have listeners in Sweden now, and in the Philippines, and soon, there will be more dots on the globe signaling that our Crystal Ship has once again touched ground and picked up survivors.

Survivors? Yes, that goes into our niche as well. The lost, the turned out, the disenfranchised, the apathetic, the cynical, the pessimist, and more. We all need a place to go that we can claim as our spot for the moment in time. The zeitgeist is here, and the temperature is fluid and appealing. I’m going to seek to entertain and connect with you through my music and art. But along the way, we will give commentary and testimony on addictions, obsessions, compulsions, depressions, bouts of mania (some of which will likely be caught on air), and more. There will be instances of pure magic, and true magic, things that are often imitated through sleight of hand, and prestidigitation. But then there is real magic, something one cannot learn. It is like a feather from the sky, that drifts slowly. You try to catch it in your hand, and it slips away.

My life has been a series of recurrent themes. The music, the art, the madness, the struggles, the moments of triumph. But in a weird way, it’s always been about the “show”. Some place, or destination, that tells us it is finally here. For me, that time began when I was five, and I nervously stepped into the spotlight and vanished for good. Everything changed after that performance. The show had arrived. And even if it would take years to bring all things to the surface, as to my heart’s intent, I was born for this task.

So here, on this page, I must leave you for now. A morsel of things to come. And a special note to the older crowd, such as I am. I wanted to say that this show is made for you, and not for the kids this time. I’ve often heard it said that not enough people market to the older demographics. Well. I do, and I’m proud of that. I should also mention that soon we will have a video component to our podcast, and more exclusive content can be had with a backstage pass. Every episode past the first five should have an added intro and outro for good measure. If you listen to the show, and the fact that we are just getting geared up shines through, please be patient.

It takes time to tweak a show and do all this, but we are on it daily, and will deliver the goods right on schedule, God willing. Right now, the show is once a week, with extra episodes added to the backstage pass. Thanks for taking the time to read my post, thanks for connecting (even for just a moment), And God Bless.

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