Thursday, July 31, 2008

In the "I'm not famous but my song almost is" category...

I present you with this.

A "fan" sent me the link not long ago. The video is nicely done, which is a bonus (the sidebar on youtube revealed a couple of less impressive efforts, which I won't link to out of respect for the well-intentioned-but-not-very-talented among us). But more interesting than that was the number of views. Something in the realm of 21,000 and change. That seems sort of significant, I think.

In classic "Ross King's Career is So Sad" fashion, there's absolutely no mention whatsoever of me, my website, or any other way to throw money or fame my way.

This could easily lead into a longer story -- one which I used to recite to myself daily, making me extremely bitter, and now it only makes me a tiny bit bitter -- about all the times in my life that this kind of thing has happened. Some of these could possibly even be qualified as RBT stories, because they are so ridiculous and yet so true.

A few of these stories might have titles such as:

That Time I Met The Most Successful CCM Producer in The World in the SkyCap Line, Gave Him One of My CD's, and Never Heard From Him Again Because He Was So Unimpressed

or
That Time That I Led Worship For the Largest College Bible Study in The History of America, And After 5 Years Most People Still Knew Me Only As "That Stuttering Guy Who Plays Acoustical Guitar for that Band That Shane Barnard's Drummer is In, and By The Way, Shane Strums Way Faster Than That Guy"

or maybe
That Time I Wrote Lots of Songs With a Guy for Several Years, and Now He's the Most Famous Christian Musician in the World, and I'm Still Just a Doofus on a Blog, and People Think We're Pals Because One Time We Did a CD Together, But Really I'm Pretty Sure He's Forgotten My Name Even Though He Once Borrowed One of My Shirts To Go Out On a Date, So Now There's No Way I Can Exploit Our Former Friendship For My Own Gain, Which Sucks Royally

or, my personal favorite
That Time that Grassroots Sold Several Thousand Dollars Worth of My CD's Only to Go Bankrupt Before Paying Me

I'm still working out the kinks in some of those titles.

Anyway, when I'm really in my sanest place and walking in the Spirit, these stories make me laugh, and then I usually feel like a moron for even complaining at all, when lots of people in the world never get to have such a cool job like me.

I guess, if nothing else, I can hope for the day when Christian Music is cool enough that it will have it's own VH-1 type channel, and maybe they'll have a show that could feature me and a bunch of other sad wanna-bes and never-wases. The show could be called "Have You Ever Wondered Who Wrote that One Song That Lots of People Heard But Nobody Had Any Idea Who Wrote?"

I'm still working out the kinks in the title.

12 comments:

Todd Wright said...

Dude, I can TOTALLY give you that shirt back.

Sheesh.

rk said...

Todd, you mis-read the title. It said "Most Famous Christian Musician in the World," not "Guy Who Blogs 17 times a Day and Has 136 websites in HOPES that he'll be the most famous Christian Musician in the World."

It's an understandable mistake. But you're welcome to any of my shirts, as long as you keep up that "shirt-less treadmill" policy.

Michael said...

haha nice one Todd.

Nick L. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nick L. said...

the one about "fast strumming" had me in stitches. strumming a billion times a second is apparently the all-determining criterion for artistic credibility.

and the famous christian musician one. you don't keep in touch? i'm surprised you haven't crossed paths. i figured there was some "texas worship leaders who record CD's and play a lot of baptist/bible church/college student camps" list serve or facebook group through which everyone could network. anyways, i'm sure he's got a stash of those cd's somewhere! maybe buried with the stacks of platinum records and dove awards accumulating in his storage closet, but nevertheless.

by the way, i was at grassroots music in the months leading up to weston-gate. i was just a peon college "intern" working for free (stupid, stupid), so i was blissfully ignorant of the impending financial crisis that would lead to artists getting bilked out of their earnings. i was as shocked and saddened as everybody else when i read those stripey forums (wow, the word "stripey" hasn't crossed my mind in quite awhile) and learned what went down. so sorry to hear you took a hit with such long-lasting effects! i hope it didn't put anyone out of the business for good. a financial setback like that can really do that for an independent artist.

Johnny! said...

Hey, Wishful, you prolly worked with my wife.

Since this is a tune by "Performer Ross," you're being ripped, and our well-meaning fan needs to give you some props. I'm glad so many Christian viewers are touched, blah blah blah...but worship also involves not transgressing the Law.

I know you well enough to know that a worship song being disseminated this way wouldn't sting as badly.

LP said...

You'll be happy to know that I went on & posted some DON'T JUST LISTEN, BUY IT stuff on the youtube page.

Also, is it wrong to suggest that if it's so popular with services & such, why don't we do it better (but still as subtle and non-commercial) and sell it (offer for donation)? It'd cost nothing except for blank DVDs), since I know people who do video graphics. Plus I think the singer guy is OK with his music being pirated.

:)

rk said...

To be fair, there's a pretty decent chance that this guy asked for my permission to do this at some point. I get a decent amount of emails like that (i.e. "hey we're doing a camp video/drama/etc and we'd love to use your song...") and i pretty much always tell them yes as long as they're not going to sell it for money, or if they are going to sell it for money, i sometimes ask for a legal share.

The point is that i have no idea if this is "pirated" or not. But I wasn't ticked off, so much as just laughing about something getting 20,000 hits and no one having any idea who was behind it.

So i'm not looking to sue anybody. I just like feeling like a victim.

Either way, I'm sort of excited that so many people wanted to see it.

See, and you people thought I was a cynical old meanie.

Christy@pipandsqueak said...

Ross,
In the "I remember when..." category, I remember your first time to play in public at Breakaway way back in the middle school library. I lost touch with where you were and then found you thanks to Melissa's blog. I need to go get your newer stuff. Best of luck.
"Skeeters"

D.O. said...

Oh man, I had the song from that video stuck in my head the other day and was racking my brain trying to think of who it was that sung it...

Who is that?

billy newhouse said...

Ross,

I think it's great that you didn't "blow up" into one of the CCM guys. I've been real encouraged by your calling to pastor and shepherd your family at Com Church. Don't get me wrong, I love jumping at any opportunities to see you play when you're in the area (and I wish that were more often!), but what a blessing to the flock at Com Church. I hope more worship leaders will become worship pastors and pour their lives into their church family.

josh said...

I like you, Ross King. I really do.