Where Are All The Music Lovers? (Now & Then)

No-one will convince me that there isn't a manipulation of this reality. No-one will convince me that something hasn't went seriously wrong with humanity. No-one will convince me that this Music I create isn't as good as anything out there. You can dress it up however you like, you can tell me to "give it up, you've had your chance", "the world has moved on", "people like different music now", "no-one really cares for music anymore, there are other forms of entertainment". I've heard it all, I've considered it all.

Yet here's the thing. In the early 2000s, when I was just starting out, I used to be an active member of a Neil Finn/Tim Finn/Split Enz/Crowded House forum. I occasionally used to post my songs there. These were 4-track demos I had recorded on cassette tape and my Seven Worlds 'Head Above Water' EP from 2003, which you can hear on this YouTube channel. Below you can see some of the comments I received back then:

Bear in mind, this was all BEFORE my debut album 'One Way Ticket', which was the first time I'd recorded anything with an outside producer. Whatever you think of me, I don't think anyone can doubt my singing has improved since then, my musicianship has improved, the production of my material has significantly got better and my songwriting is better. These comments are regarding my very early work, still finding my feet, working with very limited resources and still nowhere near the level I was aspiring to.

I also received some very encouraging emails from people in those days and not just one or two words but proper letters, where people took the time to tell me in detail what they liked about my songs. These messages carried on I'd say until about 2008 - 2009. So I was still receiving them for a year or two AFTER my spiritual awakening, suggesting it can't all be down to that. It began to drop off significantly just before and around the time of SoulJahm. Then the comments I did receive started getting stranger, let's say. Sure, I'd still get the occasional straightforward, pleasant comment here and there but mostly just silence. On every platform, not just YouTube! I've even had the odd comment over the years from people noticing it themselves, saying "you should have way more subscribers!", "you should be way bigger", as if they are as puzzled as I am. Sometimes it feels as if I'm being 'trolled', like they know fine well why I'm not bigger, but they are rubbing it in. I often think to myself when those people say these things "well, you could make a start, you could buy one of my songs or follow-up supporting what I do in some way" but usually they leave the comment, don't follow or anything, and then disappear into oblivion.

As I write this I have 289 subscribers on YouTube. Take a look at my channel and see the complete absence of comments and interaction. When I observe other YouTube channels they have at least a few regular commenters, people who are fans, who interact with each video they put out. That's what you would expect from fans is it not? That they look forward to your latest release, your latest video and that there would be some sort of response. Most of the likes I get are from non-subscribers. So I often wonder... what an earth are these 289 subscribers doing following me? What is the point if they aren't interested in anything I put out on here? It is the same on all the other social media platforms. I once had over 100 subscribers on Instagram but they barely responded to anything I posted... not even likes. It doesn't just happen online. Many of those Instagram subscribers came from my busking days. So they saw me busk in person, followed me on Instagram and then nothing. That's why I cleared a lot of them away, I didn't feel like they were at all interested in this Music, and if so, then I don't want them as followers because I wouldn't be on any social media if I wasn't a musician.

Now, I have a few theories as to what may be going on here. It seems to me that it all changed when I more clearly and consciously went independent. In the early 2000s up until 'One Way Ticket' days perhaps people expected me to go down the conventional routes, try to get a record deal and go into the industry. When they saw that wasn't the path I was taking, perhaps they lost interest. If so, that only goes to prove my point... the whole music scene in this world is controlled and if you don't play that game you will get nowhere. It's absurd. The internet was supposed to help indie musicians... all the tools are there now to do it yourself. As far as I was concerned, it was all just opening up, so if this theory has any truth to it, then I don't see what the problem is. If you liked what I was doing back then it was only going to get better.

Another theory is I 'lost' people when I became 'spiritual'. This doesn't make sense to me because I am still essentially the same, especially musically. I haven't went in a radically different direction musically. I still love melodic guitar music.

The final theory I have considered, which is perhaps the most 'far out', is my encounter with the French freemason in 2010, just before Kate and I set off to Europe and started SoulJahm. There were things he said in emails to me that when applied in a general sense could explain what has happened. These were statements like "you won't be hearing from us again" and "don't know whether to talk to you as a child or not" and "I won't get involved with you". Obviously, as anyone would, I assumed these were just personal statements between them and me. How could I have considered back then that they would play out in a wider, more general sense in my life? Yet someone I spoke to back in 2016, who had nothing to do with any of that, suggested to me that this conflict between them and me was somehow affecting everyone. I know that sounds crazy and goes against all that we conventionally know about how reality works but reality is increasingly showing itself to be nothing at all like we were led to believe. So it's possible this French freemason has been involved in some kind of manipulation against me. When I look at many of the things he threw at me in those emails, it does look like some kind of inversion, some kind of jealousy or resentment. It's almost as if he was some sort of spokesman for the freemasons, for this system of control, and they were happy to work with me if I 'played the game' but the moment I broke away to do my own thing they lashed out and have tried to sabotage my journey and ruin my 'music career'.

None of it makes sense. The original Seven Worlds version of "Christmas (C'mon)" was played back in the early 2000s on a particular radio station and when I contacted them recently to play the newer, updated David William version they never responded. You can't say it's because times have changed, styles have changed, because plenty people still listen to The Beatles, Oasis, Crowded House and all the 60s, 70s, 80s & 90s artists I have been influenced by and my songs are not so far-out in style to those artists. You can't say it's because the world is a mess and people have other concerns and are too distracted to give time to an indie artist like myself because there are plenty creative people of all kinds thriving on YouTube and social media in these times.

The one main difference I see is all of those people still have a foot in the control system, so to speak. They may call themselves 'indie' but they all still network, interact with and have connections (both online and offline) to the masonic system of control. One of the other statements this French freemason said to me in 2010 was how I should interact with the 'community', ie. my local community. This connects up with the encounters I've had over the years... people around Edinburgh who've tried to get me into pubs or churches or wherever to socialise and play with people. I have always deliberately refused these offers because I always sensed there was a manipulation behind them.

I am a social being, despite what he also tried to pin on me (that I hate people), I want to socialise and play for people but I want to do it in an organic, free way. I've always recognised that this is how they control you. They get you to join community groups, churches, organisations, or into pubs because that is a stepping stone. Once they get you in these places then you will gradually follow the group-think, you will stop thinking for yourself and start copying those around you, either consciously or unconsciously. I have observed this with others and I've observed it online too. Everywhere I tried online to play or get exposure for this Music people would only interact with me if they could pull me into their clique. Otherwise they shun you, ignore you, ridicule you or reject you. That's one of the reasons I stopped playing live online. I could sense it was going nowhere unless I played their games. Again, this French freemason inverted it back in 2010 to make out I was the one playing games when it is them.

All my life since childhood I've fought against this. I had friends around me who would try to get me to join Boys Brigade or football organisations or whatever and when I went my own way, they rejected me. I've been rejected and not listened to all my life. Plenty people have pretended to like me or be my friend when their real agenda was to pull me into this masonic control system. I suspect this is what it's all about, why I've struggled so much to be rewarded properly for this Music.

I've had to walk a loner path, not because I naturally am a loner, not because I hate people but because I've had to stay clear off these manipulations. The people themselves often don't know what they are doing, I'm not suggesting they are all in on it, but because they are unconscious of these manipulations, they get used and utilised to try to pull in people like me. I would love nothing more than people to wake up and reclaim their power and realise we don't need any of this shit.